The American’s future is uncertain after defeat to Amanda Nunes. But women’s mixed martial arts are in rude health and has other big draws
Ronda Rousey was rare enough, and the memory of women’s MMA was shallow enough, that some people believed as she went so would the trajectory of female cage fighting. From the moment Rousey proved she could be a driver of mass attention and revenue for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, questions arose about what would happen when she wasn’t around anymore.
Would the UFC, which opened its divisions to women in 2013 because of Rousey, continue to invest in building weight classes without a superstar on which to pin its interest? Could fighters emerge from Rousey’s long shadow to curry similar media attention and sell pay-per-views? Over the long run would fight fans pay the same attention to women fighters the way they do for men?
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