“Rowdy” Ronda Rousey’s Chael Sonnen impression might help save women’s MMA

While Chael Sonnen is busy trading insults with ring card beauty in Arianny Celeste (insults that are funny but wrong, I might add), Ronda Rousey is busy doing her best Sonnen impression. The Strikeforce upstart is throwing out challenges to 135-pound champ Meisha Tate despite having only four pro fights under her belt. Granted, the Olympic judoka won all four of those fights by armbar in less than a minute, including snapping Julia Budd’s elbow just two weeks ago.

Both fighters appeared on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani this week and Rousey wasted no time throwing down the gauntlet while throwing former champ and potential contender Sarah Kaufman under the bus for good measure:

“Sarah Kaufman kind of gives boring interviews, she’s not a supermodel and the way she fights, she doesn’t finish matches in extraordinary fashion. It’s just kind of being realistic. I’m sorry that I have to say things bluntly and offend some people. I just want there to be a highly marketable, exciting women’s title fight, and I want to be part of that because I feel like I could do a really good job, and you could, too. I think the two of us could do a better job of that than you and Sarah Kaufman. I really feel 100-percent that a fight between her and me needs to happen. It’ll be great for women’s MMA. It’ll be the first highly anticipated fight in women’s MMA for a long time.”

Rousey must’ve missed Kaufman’s power-slam KO of Roxanne Modafferi, which certainly showed she knows how to finish a fight in exciting fashion. But she has a point that brash soundbites and beauty make women’s MMA more marketable. As Tate said, “If you weren’t pretty, it wouldn’t matter what you said or didn’t say. That’s why you’re getting this attention. I don’t know, I guess I personally like more of a humble approach.”

So while Tate would prefer a rematch with former champ Kaufman, and vice versa, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to give Rousey the title shot. Women’s MMA is on life support. It’s two biggest stars are nowhere to be found — Gina Carano is off making movies and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos can’t seem to get a fight for a lack of 145-pound challengers.  Sonnen has already proven that having an abrasive personality can excite interest in a match-up. So let Rousey run with the smack talk, but maybe give her a title shot against Cyborg, not Tate, because I just don’t see her ripping the Brazilian’s arm off.