After months of pre-fight buildup and occasional trash-talking, Ronda Rousey, the previously undefeated UFC bantamweight champion, walked into UFC 193's octagon on Saturday night with a target on her back and a championship belt to defend.
Challenger Holly Holm won in a stunning upset, knocking out Rousey, and in the fight's aftermath, Rousey's critics eagerly poured it on, gloating about her loss as if they were powering Holm's winning hooks and head-kicks.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump found plenty of joy in Rousey's loss, taking her down in a Sunday night tweet that read like, "Rousey is a bad person and bad people need to lose in life."
The irony in Trump's moral grandstanding is too much, and it all comes from a place of jealousy and rejection. In August, Trump wrongly claimed that Rousey "likes me" for president, which Rousey responded by accurately pointing out to CNN: "I don’t want a reality TV star to be running my country.” Rousey endorsed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders for president last week.
Lady Gaga bizarrely weighed in as well, scolding Rousey on Instagram, "That's what you get for not touching gloves," referencing Rousey's pre-fight refusal to touch-em-up with Holm. Breaking a standard sportsmanship tradition in fight sports isn't the best look, but Rousey's air of arrogance in that moment wasn't going to make a difference in this fight -- Holm simply dominated.
On the fighter's side of Holm's win, Miesha Tate, Cyborg Justino and Laila Ali all laid into Rousey, basking in the reflective glory of watching the top female athlete on the planet fall.
Ali spoke to TMZ following the fight, giving an unimpressed and damning condemnation of Rousey's performance and status. “In order to be the best in the world, you definitely don’t ever get beat up like that in your prime, period," she said.
Cyborg, who threatened legal action against Rousey in August over steroid allegations, tweeted the only two characters needed to express her feelings on the fight:
While her tweet was short and sweet, Tate's reaction was the most outlandish, having complained in September about not getting a shot at Rousey for UFC 193. Here's her post-fight reaction, transcribed by For The Win:
“I’m [expletive] stoked,” Tate said. “[Expletive]Ronda Rousey. [Expletive] her and her ‘Nobody has the right to beat me.’ Nobody has the right to beat you? Well you just got beat, [expletive]. Anyways, I’m proud of Holly. She had a perfect, flawless game plan. She came in with it tonight and now she is the champion. I look forward to that fight, because I think that I’m next in line.”
While Tate's already looking forward to fighting Holm, Holm's coach is playing down her win, claiming that Rousey's loss was preordained in his mind.
"It was pretty much what we thought would happen," said Greg Jackson, one of Holm's head coaches to ESPN. "Obviously, she's an amazing athlete and we have nothing but respect for her, but she's been very successful doing the same things for a long time, and we were able to capitalize on that."
Unless Jackson's clairvoyant skills are in sync with Rousey, who eerily predicted exactly how she'd lose during a "Tonight Show" appearance last month, there's no way one can be sure of a result, especially considering how heavily favored Rousey was. Of course, saying, "It was pretty much what we thought would happen" is an easy, smug thing to state as your fighter lifts Rousey's old championship belt.
Out of all of Rousey's detractors emerging from the woodwork, surprisingly enough, Floyd Mayweather, one of Rousey's perceived enemies, offered the most measured analysis of Rousey's situation.
“Just in boxing period, contact sports period, you win some, you lose some," he told MLive.com while attending the Los Angeles Lakers-Detroit Pistons game on Sunday. "I don't know about this fight, I just know that you win some and you lose some. It basically comes with the territory."
With her first UFC loss, Rousey's territory has been entrenched upon, but as she indicated in her first post-fight comment on Instagram, she'll be back in time to attempt to retake her title.
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