She's a Knockout!

by L. A. Jennings

  Buszek’s book argues that this tradition of pinup imagery continues today and allows all women, regardless of age, race, and size (and, I would argue, athletic prowess) to celebrate femininity. Although the centerfold imperative may leave some female athletes feeling pressured to pose in pinup-style photo shoots, many women find the display empowering. In addition to creating a marketable image as an athlete, there is the simple pleasure of feeling beautiful. For highly visible sports like tennis or MMA, participating as a pinup is part of the lifestyle. In combat sports with high female participation but low media scrutiny, athletes do not have to adhere to the centerfold imperative, primarily because that necessity does not exist.

  Hyping the Rousey–Tate Fight

  The Rousey–Tate fight was an exhausted subject for the MMA community; many claimed that the hype surrounding these two women had reached a saturation point. The bout was indeed promoted with daily interviews, projections, Twitter updates, and boasting from both women. Many WMMA supporters felt overwhelmed by the excessive publicity, declaring that there were other female fighters who deserved attention, which was absolutely true. There were plenty of women fighting in smaller venues and training diligently to reach the critical mass currently occupied by Rousey and Tate. Although Rousey’s continual self-promotion and Tate’s numerous attempts to exempt herself from the drama became overbearing, the buildup of this fight was an integral part of bringing women out of the margins and into the forefront of the sport of MMA.

  The problem was not the hype surrounding the match, it was the constant insistence from multiple media outlets that Rousey or Tate must be the “face” of WMMA. Yet, the search for a singular representative of the sport had been ongoing since Debi Purcell first came onto the scene nearly a decade earlier. The popularity of the UFC and other MMA venues does not ride on the shoulders of one man, but the sport of WMMA must, for some reason, be embodied by one woman. Gina Carano, now a B movie star, failed to uphold this monumental position after her loss to Cris “Cyborg” Justino, and Justino was never considered the “face” of WMMA because she was not deemed “beautiful” by American sports media outlets. The hype surrounding the fight between Rousey and Tate revealed that female fighters are promoted in the media as pageant contestants whose talents are punching and kicking rather than singing or dancing.

  When Rousey and Tate finally met, Rousey did exactly what she claimed she would do: She threw Tate to the ground and applied her signature arm bar submission. Tate also did exactly what she promised she would do: Out of pure obstinacy, she refused to tap. Instead, Rousey applied the arm bar slowly, but fully, and Tate’s arm, because of her refusal to submit, was broken. Six months later, Rousey fought Sarah Kaufman and defeated her with an arm bar as well. Within the following year, Strikeforce would close its doors, and its fighters would need a new place to call home.

  The UFC Women’s Division

  By this time, Rousey had caught the eye of UFC president Dana White, who infamously told reporters in 2011, while stumbling out of the Mr. Chow restaurant in Beverly Hills, that women would never fight in the UFC. But White was fascinated by Rousey, not only because of her aggressive fighting style, but also because of her brashness and, undoubtedly, looks. So the UFC president changed his stance on female fighters in the UFC, and he did so with a rather sentimental gesture. White invited Rousey to dinner at Mr. Chow’s restaurant and told her the reason that they were at this particular establishment was because this was where, two years prior, he had told TMZ reporters that women would never fight in the UFC. He informed her that women would indeed fight in the UFC and that he wanted her to be the first female fighter.[18] This rather charming exchange initiated what White would call the “Rousey show,” as MMA fans and fighters speculated about who Rousey, the only woman signed to the UFC’s new women’s division, would fight in the first match.

  White chose Liz “Girl-Rilla” Carmouche, a former U.S. Marine and outspoken lesbian fighter. Carmouche had just defeated Kaitlin Young in her second Invicta FC appearance and seemed primed to take on the undefeated Rousey. The fight was historic in many ways. Not only was it the first time women would appear in the UFC, it was the first time an openly gay fighter would participate in the promotion. Carmouche, known for wearing a rainbow-striped mouth guard, and Rousey showed a lot of respect for one another, but in the cage on February 23, 2013, Carmouche submitted to Rousey’s arm bar just like her predecessors. The excitement about WMMA could be felt in the arena. Rousey and Carmouche were the main event of the evening, with major male fighters Urijah Faber, Lyoto Machida, and Dan Henderson appearing beneath them on the card.

  The Ultimate Fighter Season 18

  WMMA would remain in the UFC. In fact, Ronda Rousey was so successful in the eyes of Dana White that he set up the next season of the Ultimate Fighter to feature not only female coaches (Rousey, of course, being one of them), but for the fighters themselves to be both male and female bantamweights. The only question was who would coach the other team. On April 13, 2013, Miesha Tate entered the cage with Cat Zingano for the second UFC WMMA fight. Zingano, a Colorado-based fighter who had just returned from an extensive training camp in Thailand, is considered a particularly well-rounded fighter as a former wrestler and BJJ player. On her way into the cage, she smiled widely in the bright lights as tears streamed down her cheeks. It was a moving moment for Zingano, who was realizing her dream of fighting in the UFC, where she would be the second female fight in UFC history. In the cage, however, her smile quickly disappeared, as she pummeled Tate to a technical knockout in the third round.

  Zingano was slated to be the other coach for season 18 of the Ultimate Fighter, except that a knee injury and immediate surgery forced her to back out of the deal. White named Tate the new coach, and the rivalry between her and Rousey escalated, especially in the heightened drama of a reality television show. The show included numerous bantamweight fighters, including veterans Roxanne “Happy Warrior” Modafferi and Shayna “Queen of Spades” Baszler, known for being the first person to pull off the twister submission in a fight, and was, of course, filled with drama, but the finale resulted in Julianna Pena defeating Jessica Rakoczy with a technical knockout out in the first round, making her the first female winner of the Ultimate Fighter. Sadly, Pena suffered a devastating knee injury in January 2014, and had to pull out of her forthcoming UFC debut fight.

  Meanwhile, as is tradition on the Ultimate Fighter, the coaches faced off in the octagon a few weeks after their fighters had competed in the show’s finale. The animosity between Rousey and Tate had grown to epic proportions, and after Rousey yet again submitted Tate with an arm bar (she tapped this time), the reigning champion refused to shake her opponent’s hand, prompting boos from the crowd. Rousey explained in a press conference that Tate had insulted her family, but the rivalry and hostility between the two runs deeper than any one particular issue. The problem between Rousey and Tate is that Rousey is the face of WMMA, and according to some people, including Tate, she never paid her dues.

  Rousey continued her winning streak in the bantamweight division, defeating Tate and Sarah Kaufman in Strikeforce, before defeating Liz Carmouche, Tate, and Sara McMann in the UFC. The second fight with Tate was punctuated in the media with vitriolic comments and signs of poor sportsmanship all around. Heightened by the dramatic editing of the Ultimate Fighter reality show, where Rousey and Tate were both coaches, the fight was almost shamefully dramatized. The promotion of Rousey’s next fight with fellow Olympian Sara McMann was tame, and even boring, by MMA standards. Rousey and McMann approached one another as colleagues in a dysfunctional office, each declaring their own superiority, yet doing so in a polite manner. It was a welcome change for many MMA fans.

  As we have seen, long before Ronda Rousey entered the octagon in the UFC, women were competing in MMA. On many occasions, exceptionally great female fighters the likes of Debi Purcell or Meguimi Fujii competed on fight undercards, although they should have been featured higher
on the card roster. Female fighters had been underpaid and underappreciated; Ronda Rousey instantly received endorsements, magazine editorials, and a celebrity following. Even Gina Carano, the first internationally recognized and admired female fighter, did not receive the type of press Rousey has generated. Thus, many WMMA fans and some fighters believe that Rousey not only stepped on the shoulders of the great female fighters before her, but that she did so with an arrogance that was offensive and disrespectful. When Rousey called out Miesha Tate in 2011, to fight for the Strikeforce championship, Tate felt that she was speaking out of turn, but the etiquette of fighting sports is not dictated by Emily Post.

  Muhammad Ali created an institution around self-aggrandizement, and modern MMA fighters Chael Sonnen and the Diaz brothers, Nick and Nate, followed in his footsteps. These fighters have received a great deal of press and, therefore, more fighting opportunities because of their self-promotion. What Rousey did was promote herself to an extent that no other professional female MMA fighter had accomplished, and she used all of her tools at hand—her good looks, winning record of submitting opponents with arm bars in the first round, and Olympic medals—to convince not just Dana White, but the MMA community as a whole, that she was worthy of the belt and the praise. Then she backed up her assertions. She continues to win her fights, and she does so without pretending to abide by the gender ideal that women should be passive, nurturing, and giving.

  1. Matt Winkeljohn, “State to Seek Court Order to Prevent Ultimate Fighting,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 29 May 1997, E8.

  2. “Future Fights Will Feature New Rules,” Salt Lake Tribune, 21 June 1997, C5.

  3. “Long Island Mom Wins World Champion Martial Arts Title in Japan,” New Voice of New York, 18 August 2005, 16.

  4. Chris Clayton, “Midlands Lawmakers Seek to KO ‘Extreme Fighting’ Contests in Bars,” Omaha World Herald, 23 February 2002, 1.

  5. David Hackett, “County Plans Toughman Measure,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, 24 July 2003, BS1.

  6. “Women Add Punch to Fight Night,” Gold Coast Bulletin, 26 March 2005, 183.

  7. Rusty Marks, “Fight Club,” Sunday Gazette, 1 September 2002, 6F.

  8. Lana Stefanac, interview with L. A. Jennings, 29 August 2013.

  9. “Gina Carano vs. Julie Kedzie,” YouTube, 11 November 2012. Available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngUOcReb-og&feature=player_embedded (accessed 3 March 2104).

  10. Shari Dworkin, “Holding Back: Negotiating a Glass Ceiling on Women’s Muscular Strength,” Sociological Perspectives 44, no. 3 (2001): 337.

  11. Michael Stets, “Meat on the Bone,” MMA Mania, August 13, 2013. Available online at http://www.mmamania.com/2013/8/13/4615670/bellator-boss-bjorn-rebney-interview-rampage-vs-tito-ppv-tna-ben-askren-interview-mma (accessed 13 September 2013).

  12. Mike Chiapetta, “Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey Spar over Who Should Be Next Title Challenger,” transcription from MMA Hour interview with Ariel Helwani, 28 November 2011. Available online at http://www.mmafighting.com/2011/11/28/miesha-tate-ronda-rousey-spar-over-who-should-be-next-title-cha (accessed 30 November 2011).

  13. Chiapetta, “Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey Spar over Who Should Be Next Title Challenger.”

  14. Maria Elena Buszek, Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006).

  15. Buszek, Pin-Up Grrrls, 333.

  16. Buszek, Pin-Up Grrrls, 334.

  17. Buszek, Pin-Up Grrrls, 231.

  18. Dan Wetzel, “Dana White’s About-Face on Women’s MMA Became Official One Historic Night Last August,” Yahoo Sports, 19 February 2013. Available online at http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mma--dana-white-s-about-face-on-women-s-mma-became-official-one-historic-night-last-august-045153399.html (accessed 14 September 2013).

  Conclusion

  Past, Present, and Future Pugilism

  After months of wild speculation surrounding Ronda Rousey’s next opponent, the announcement that she would face Alexis Davis at UFC 175 felt anticlimactic, not because Davis is anything less than a fantastic fighter, but because the conjectured opponents had suddenly become absurd. Cat Zingano seemed the most logical fighter to receive a shot at Rousey, although she was still recovering from ACL surgery. Holly Holm, professional-boxer-turned-MMA-fighter, was also predicted to face Rousey, and, of course, numerous fans were dying to see Cris “Cyborg” Justino finally join the animated fighter in the cage. But the most talked about suggestion was that Gina Carano should come out of retirement after spending five years in Hollywood, which seems both ludicrous and strange given that she fought in a different weight class than Rousey and had not fought in years. The UFC and Dana White played up this debate, even allowing rumors to “slip out” that fans would be shocked by the choice of opponent. When Davis’s name was announced, many people felt that the intense speculation and hype diminished the reality of the contest.

  It is interesting to contemplate the arc of Ronda Rousey’s career. In the beginning, she continually asserted the importance of manipulating the media to generate interest for fights. When arguing why she should be Strikeforce champion Miesha Tate’s next opponent in 2011, she explained that the media would eagerly promote a bout between two beautiful, media-savvy women. During the next few years, she continued to use the media to her advantage, just like many of her male colleagues do. Yet, she was demonized by many people in the women’s mixed martial arts (WMMA) community, who called her everything from an upstart to overrated. By 2014, Rousey had fully established herself as the champion, especially when she defeated Sara McMann with a sharp knee to the liver and not with her signature arm bar. Her right to the bantamweight belt is undeniable, and so she can be less bombastic in her media appearances and instead indulge in spending more time with her girlfriends. By mid-2014, Rousey seemed more relaxed in her interviews and carefree with her roommates and training partners, Shayna Baszler, Marina Shafir, and Jessamyn Duke. Ronda’s three roommates, all professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters known as the “Four Horsewomen,” create an environment of love and support that may be just what the sport of MMA needed.

  The history of female fights is often a mere footnote in most martial arts books, a few pages that mention Elizabeth Wilkinson Stokes or Christy Martin but quickly move on to other marginal issues in fighting. In her phenomenal text On Boxing, published in 1987, Joyce Carol Oates asserts that, “Boxing is a purely masculine activity and [sic] it inhabits a purely masculine World.”[1] Oates was not a pessimist, but perhaps she was not cognizant of the rich history of female fighters. She recognizes the inherent masculinity within the sport of boxing. Even now, when we talk about women boxers, there is the necessity to qualify them as women, and not just boxers. Yet, this is not a phenomenon restricted to fighting sports.

  I would like to return to Professor Michael Kimmel, whose quote in the introduction recognizes that those in the center of power do not have to be named: Men in sports are athletes, but women in sports are female athletes. The qualifier of female takes one away from the center of power, and that marginalization increases when other qualifiers are added, for instance, African American woman or Asian American woman. It can be disconcerting and disheartening as women when we see stark statistics, like those provided by Professor Michael Messner in the introduction, that reveal the ever-decreasing amount of coverage devoted to female athletes in the American media, but when we leave the realm of the professional athletes and take a look at athletics on the micro-scale, in schools and community centers throughout the United States and in Europe, we can see that girls are participating in sports in unprecedented numbers.

  According to a recent study conducted by ESPN the magazine, by age six, 60 percent of boys and 47 percent of girls are already playing a team sport.[2] Of course, these numbers vary significantly depending on location (urban, suburban, or rural), economic status, and race. The study also reveals that girls are less likely to play sports when a family is in dire circumstances; in fact, 59 percent o
f girls from single-parent households do not play sports. While there is still a significant gap between the activities of young boys and young girls, the options for females have grown exponentially throughout the past few decades. As education and civil rights for women have increased during the past one hundred years, there has been concomitant growth in sports participation, but one drawback to our current situation is that we neglect to remember that women have always taken part in sports, although participation in those activities has been mired in social and gender stereotyping.

  The history of women’s sports is not perfectly linear; it has been a rollercoaster ride that continues, even today, to be marked by quick shifts and variable progress. In the late nineteenth century, the number of women participating in sports began to rise. In the United States and Europe, sports were primarily practiced by middle- and upper-class people who had free time. Most lower-income individuals did not have the time during a busy work day to play a sport, although there are tales of men wrestling and boxing after work for fun. Like today, certain sports had a connotation that marked them within society. Golf and tennis were seen as more upscale activities, while wrestling and boxing were, for some reason, considered lower-class endeavors. There continues to be a class divide between those who practice golf, tennis, skiing, or horseback riding and those who box, wrestle, or run. Moreover, the cultural conception of certain sports changes throughout time. Cheerleading is often considered a “female” sport today, but cheerleaders in the mid-twentieth century were often men. Such sports as golf, tennis, swimming, running, and gymnastics tend to be more gender-neutral, while American football remains a primarily masculine sport. Fighting sports are, of course, historically thought of as male-centric activities: Consider the early American name for boxing as the “manly art of self-defense.”