She also slammed her head pretty hard when she fell to the mat

What I meant is if Ronda loses again then nobody will give a **** about her. Her whole draw was that she was an unbeatable female fighter. If she can't beat Holmes a second time her spark will be lost.

How does UFC work? If both Rousey and Holm wants an immediate rematch will it happen? Or does Holm have to fight the #1 contender? Or what?

yea, Rousey's entire brand that has been marketed hard for 2+ years now is completely ruined. She can beat Holm in 15 seconds and it wont be close to what it was.

I think it's funny that when GSP or Silva lose it's a fluke, but when Ronda loses her career is over.

cant compare ronda's devastating 6 minute beatdown to gsp getting caught with a weird punch

How does Anderson losing compare?

Her fans are going to make massive excuses for her losing just like Anderson's fans or Fedor's fans.

Weidman only started to get the respect he deserves after smashing Machida and Vitor.

Because GSP and Silva are marketed to MMA fans. Rousey was marketed as a general female sports figure, who's allure is purely based on the fact that she's dominant.

Rousey will still have MMA fans, but her general sporting appeal is shot to hell.

the first fight?

between serra and rousey in terms of fluke vs demolition

You should probably watch Silva Weidman again.

Chris took him down, pounded him on the ground, threatened with submissions, and beat him on the feet in the 1st. He then beat him on the feet even worse in the 2nd and knocked him out. Chris didn't have a mark on his face after the fight and took zero damage outside of some leg kicks.

Holly completely dominated Ronda as well but she took some big shots and was in the danger zone on the ground.

i was one of the most fervant weidman fan and even said i was expecting Weidman to win the first fight, I know how it was and how people reacted to it.

Silva was being an idiot and like in most of his fights didnt tryhard much at all early (which is all of it).

So was Rousey

rousey was being bad and outclassed while being relentless in her "attacks", not clowning around passively to showoff like silva.

like silva and rousey are polar opposites

Sure the track of undefeatable super woman is up in smoke. The new narrative, if she is up to it, will be about the first time she has to come back from adversity to overcome a real challenge, and how that is the true stuff of champions.

There is certainly a chance to market this better than just claiming every new fight is her "biggest challenge yet" as she opens -2000. They will have ideas. Maybe not as valuable, or maybe more?

The real question is if she has the stuff that makes that narrative work or she will just quit. She already was complaining about how tough it was to be her before she got punched out and has to work to regain that respect. I am guessing with her attitude she will struggle with not being the golden child.

Either way, any fan who was only in it to see her win in the first round over and over would never have stuck around after she retired anyway. Anyone who got drawn in and hooked is hooked.

Great fighter who is looking to avenge getting the crap kicked out of them is just as easily marketed as "most dominant athlete in sports" right?

GSP and Anderson were never even close to the level of marketing Ronda was receiving from all forms of the media. You guys are seriously underestimating how bad this is gonna hurt her brand if you think she'll even come close to sniffing the hype she was getting.

No doubt that Rousey increased the viewership of the UFC and made some new fans who are "hooked." But the Fallon and other mainstream appearances will be severely cut back.

The fight this is analogous to isn't GSP/Serra or Anderson/Weidman, it's Barao/TJ

Who gives a ****? The UFC has gotten pretty close to the maximum exposure they could get from her. She won't be fighting forever and they need to build up some of these other fighters before she's gone and leaves womens MMA in shambles.

If she retired 3 weeks ago, how would this card do with Misha as a replacement?

Dana says, they do.

There is her brand and there is the ufc. Her brand helped for her fights, and her ridic movie career, and her sponsorships. The only thing the ufc need really care about in that is her fights and whatever other attention it brought in terms of sticky new fans. She had cleaned out the division except for the cyborg thing, so there were only a few more paydays they could have gotten from her before she disappeared into whatever horrible post fight career she was able to create while the iron was hot. If anything, her losing adds to the number of interesting fights she possibly has left in the ufc.

How many more times was a casual fan paying $60 and sitting through three hours of what must be excruciatingly boring fights for a non fight fan, to watch her arm bar someone in 2 mintutes anyway? The path her brand was on, while well defined, was well into the downward arc anyway.

Either people start to like MMA or it keeps getting more WWE. I don't know why any real fan would think this is a blow to the sport.

Did anyone watch the post event interview with Dana? There were some interesting tid bits.

Most notably
-Holm made 100 thousand
-Rousey made 50k???
-Rousey was taken to the hospital

Their fight won fight of the night which got them each a 50k bonus.

Holm also won one of the performance of the night bonuses for another 50k.

That is not what they got paid to fight. Rousey made millions for certain.