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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The UFC has received some negative reaction from a small subset of fans on Ronda Rousey headlining UFC 157 in February, and UFC President Dana White addressed some of the naysayers on Saturday night after The Ultimate Fighter 16 Finale.
"I've seen some people talking s***: 'Oh, the women's fight is the headliner.' Ronda Rousey is badass, she's the champ," White said (transcribed by MMAJunkie.com). "Her opponent stepped up to the plate and wanted this fight with her when others didn't – I don't give a s*** what they say, that's a fact. And there's a great card underneath it. It's a great night of fights, no matter who's fighting. But she deserves to be the headliner. It's not, 'Hey, pony up $55 bucks and let's be curious. She's the champ. You will never see a situation in any fight – man, woman, the lightest weight division, whatever it is – you're the headliner. You're on the top of the card."
"Everybody keeps asking me all this crazy s***, but it's not f***ing 1920, guys. There's women fighting in the UFC. There's a woman who's the champ. She's mean, she's nasty, she's badass and there's other girls in that division who are tough and there are fights out there that are interesting. I'm going to treat them the way I treat the guys. No different."
White also addressed one of the concerns that has come about with the introduction of Rousey and the women's division: will it be a full division or just Ronda Rousey fights inside the Octagon?
"People are like, 'It's the Ronda Rousey show.' You're f***ing right it's the Ronda Rousey show,'" White said. "She's a huge star, she gets more media than anyone else out there and she's the reason that I was interested in doing this. She's mean, she's nasty and she likes to finish people. She's the one who got this thing kickstarted and got me interested in it."
"All the other girls that we sign are going to fight and this is going to be done the same as it is with the guys. We're not going to say, 'Hey ladies, you all just sit around and wait until Ronda's ready to fight you.'"
Penick's Analysis: It's good to hear that there will be some other fights in the women's 135 lb. division, because it's needed to set up those other challengers for Rousey. Of course, if she loses to Liz Carmouche at UFC 157, then there might not be a future for the division, but we'll see where things go in 2013 as the women's division kicks off in the UFC. As for criticism regarding the UFC 157 headlining spot, I don't have any issue with the fight being the headlining bout. It's a title fight, it makes sense, but I still think they've erred by having it on pay-per-view instead of introducing Rousey to the masses on Fox. It's just not going to be a massive seller off the bat, people who aren't already familiar with Rousey are not going to drop $55 necessarily to see her fight for the first time. They'd tune in on Fox, then tune in on pay-per-view, but out of the gate? This could be a very low-selling pay-per-view event.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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