Trading Shots: On the gleeful response to Ronda Rousey's fall at UFC 193

Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey

In this week’s Trading Shots, retired UFC and WEC fighter Danny Downes joins MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes to look at the gleeful response to Ronda Rousey’s loss at the hands of Holly Holm at UFC 193. With the queen dethroned, what happens next?

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Downes: Ben, last night Ronda Rousey lost the first fight of her career, to Holly Holm. It was one of the most shocking upsets in MMA history. Which is kind of odd because everyone seems to be saying that they predicted this would happen long ago.

The day after a fight is always filled with lots of ex post facto justifications. Was Rousey’s mother a distraction? Did her coach’s financial troubles affect her? See, that’s what she gets for being on the cover of Ring Magazine!

Most of all, though, people seem to be taking joy in watching her lose. Why they do that? Is it because Rousey “doesn’t give a damn about (her) bad reputation?” Or is it the simple pleasure of watching someone so high up fall so far?

Fowlkes: I think it’s a combination of factors. For one, Rousey has not always been the most gracious winner. Remember when she refused to shake Miesha Tate’s hand? Or how about when she knocked out Bethe Correia and told her “don’t cry”? She may not have rubbed it in against absolutely every opponent, but I think we can agree that being a good sport wasn’t always high up there on her list of priorities.

Plus, as with any big draw in combat sports, half the interest is fueled by people hoping to see her catch a beatdown. When that beatdown materializes, of course they’re going to be louder in celebration than her fans are in mourning. And the people who are neither Rousey fans nor Rousey haters, they probably just liked seeing the established order turned upside down. That’s one of the most exciting aspects of any sport – the rare, shocking upset. This was definitely that, no matter what the hindsight experts say.

As for the somewhat mean-spirited nature of the gloating, Rousey brought some of that on herself. As I mentioned in my mailbag this week, empathy isn’t exactly Rousey’s thing.

Danny, this is a person who was recently seen gleefully mocking “gritty, kitty,” um, women, when they criticized her bad sex advice. This is someone who revealed that she burned Floyd Mayweather on TV not because he is a serial abuser of women, but because he pretended not to know who she was.

Her pre-fight attitude toward Holm, who was nothing but courteous to Rousey at every turn, gave us a glimpse of a champion who was an excellent fighter, but maybe not a particularly nice person. When that person gets kicked in the face by the humble, soft-spoken challenger, some people are bound to take that as Greek myth-style righteous comeuppance.

The counterpoint I’ve seen, and that I can’t totally disagree with, is that whether you like her as a person or not, Rousey is responsible for women’s MMA even making it to the UFC. She’s the reason Holm got to fight in a stadium in Australia. She’s also the reason Joanna Jedrzejczyk got to co-headline the damn thing. She built this, in a lot of ways, and this is the thanks she gets? People dancing on her grave after one loss?

Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm

Downes: What’s the alternative? Showing eternal deference to Rousey for her entire career? You’re correct that the current state of women’s MMA owes a lot to Rousey. And despite whatever transpired last night, she’s still the biggest star in the entire sport.

People have contradictory stances when it comes to athletes or celebrities in general. We praise them for doing things we could never do. We recognize their talents and give them tons of money to perform. Then, when they don’t act “just like us,” we get upset. We get mad when Jon Jones, the greatest current fighter in the world, doesn’t have enough humility. When Rousey is “rude” to opponents, we bash her. Before we bash her, though, we’re sure to laugh about it, promote it and reinforce the behavior.

You get a short story published and you call every single person in your contacts list to tell them. Someone told me they liked my new glasses and I wrote about it in my diary. All of social media is one big humble brag contest. Could you imagine what we’d be like if we had the adoration of millions of fans and the millions of dollars that went along with it? We’d be even less tolerable than usual.

The big question is, what’s next? Not in the sense of the inevitable rematch, but for the aura of Rousey. The Mike Tyson comparisons are already starting. How will she respond to this loss? Is this the beginning of the end? Does this mean the “Roadhouse” remake we’ve all wanted is in jeopardy?

Fowlkes: The aura has changed, but maybe, eventually, for the better. Remember last week, when the big problem with Rousey was her lack of competition? We praised her dominance, but also wondered how long she could keep people’s interest with pay-per-view fights that were over in seconds. The UFC was so worried that she’d win via another easily Vine-able destruction that it sent out advanced warnings about copyright infringement (which didn’t even slow the Internet down, much less stop it, but that’s another conversation).

Now Rousey doesn’t have that problem. Instead, she has a completely different one. She also has an opportunity to rebuild and rebrand. If she handles her business, she could emerge as a bigger star than ever when it’s all done.

See, as long as she crushes all her competition, it’s tough to say whether she’s just that good or her opponents are just that bad. But now that she’s been beaten, and beaten decisively, we have some perspective. We have some way to understand what it would mean for her to come back and reclaim her title. Somehow, Rousey has become a sympathetic figure, rather than the sneering alpha female.

Some people are still going to root for her demise. Others are going to see her as a walking redemption story. But now there’s a completely different kind of interest in her career. Of course, if Holm beats her again, that interest might fall through the floor. And then what, Danny? If Holm effectively drives Rousey out of MMA and into the arms of Hollywood, just as Cristiane Justino did to Gina Carano, is women’s MMA – at least in the UFC – in danger?

Downes: Depends on what you mean by “in danger.” Would we see a women’s bantamweight fight headline a stadium show on a pay-per-view? Probably not, but WMMA isn’t going to disappear.

Will Holm receive the same praise and promotional push as Rousey? Again, probably not, but that shouldn’t be surprising. Jose Aldo has been a dominant champ, and he’s never received the same push as Conor McGregor. I don’t see Robbie Lawler in any NOS commercials either, but that’s fine. Different fighters have different personalities. Even if this is the beginning of the end of the #RouseyRevolution, it’s certainly not the end of women’s MMA.

Fowlkes: It’s not women’s MMA disappearing entirely that I’m wondering about. It was, after all, in existence well before Rousey arrived. It just wasn’t so profitable, or even on the UFC’s radar.

We may not want to admit it, but a lot of Rousey’s fans are not MMA fans. If Rousey decides she’s better off making movies than putting up with our nonsense in this crazy sport (and she seems halfway there already, judging by her recent comments), the people who paid for her fights and hung on her every word won’t necessarily be as excited about Holm vs. Tate. What that means for the division, I don’t know. But a day of reckoning is coming, most likely when Holm and Rousey meet again. And you can bet there will be a lot of Rousey lovers and haters glued to the screen then.

For complete coverage of UFC 193, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.