In terms of quotability, this week’s Rousey vs. Carano kick-off press conference for MVP/Netflix has been a gold mine.
With apologies to Philipe Lins, who was never expected to say much, having three notable names in Ronda Rousey, Gina Carano, and Francis Ngannou, all of whom can be charming and work a mic, meant there would be a multitude of storylines. And there have been.
Perhaps the biggest has been Rousey positioning the fight as the start of something bigger, perhaps the start of a charge against MMA’s entrenched, dominant force, the UFC.
On Tuesday, she told media outlets including Cageside Press that her fight with Carano appearing on the world’s leading streaming service, Netflix, “was always the ultimate goal.”
“They’re the biggest player out there, the most premium channel or outlet that we could be on. And that’s what I think that this fight really deserves. And I think that the UFC made a huge mistake going with Paramount and just taking the biggest check, because they left the biggest streamer in the world with a need that they want filled, and someone else is going to fill it.”
The UFC signed a $7.7 billion dollar broadcast deal with Paramount Skydance to have all their content, including numbered events, appear on Paramount+. In the process, Pay-Per-View dollars were eliminated; the fight with Rousey and Carano, once destined from Rousey’s old fighting home, was axed as a result.
In short, the UFC didn’t want to pay up. Just as they reportedly didn’t want to pay Jon Jones, and, apparently, Conor McGregor.
“The UFC just feels like they’re too big to fail, and it doesn’t matter. Then they have this fight of me and Gina, the two biggest names in the sport when it comes to international name recognition— I think a lot of people in MMA don’t realize how few people outside of MMA know who anyone in it is.”
Rousey added that she’s had plenty of fans mention that they haven’t watched fighting since she wrapped up her career, calling it “common.”
“Because of their short-term greed of trying to hog as much of that Paramount check for the shareholders as possible, they let the biggest fight in recent history, or maybe in the history of the sport go to the biggest streamer, that they left wide open for somebody else to take. And now this is going to be the most viewed MMA fight of all time easily. And they just let it go why? They think they’re the only gig in town. And somebody’s going to come and fill that void that they’re leaving, and MVP is ready to be there and to innovate and to take the risk, and honestly it’s not much of a risk.”
Rousey, who throughout Tuesday’s press conference suggested that Dana White is no longer entirely in charge of the MMA juggernaut, went on to say that she hopes the UFC “sees that the writing is on the wall.”
“They’re going to lose the market share of the sport if they don’t start prioritizing the fighters, and not just trying to get away with putting up fights that are basically as cheap as possible. Because that’s how they keep most of that upfront check, right? They don’t have any incentive to put on the best fights possible. They’re not doing Pay-per-View anymore. The way that they keep the most of that 7.7 billion dollars is to spend as little as possible. There’s no incentive for them to have the biggest names and the best fights.”
Perhaps hinting at more to come, Rousey added that “change is coming, and I’m very happy to be at the forefront of it.”