Michael Rapaport: Ronda Rousey saved by “white-girl privilege” in UFC 207 fight
Last month at UFC 207, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey made her highly anticipated return to the Octagon over a year after suffering the first defeat of her career at UFC 193 to Holly Holm.
Leading up to Rousey’s highly anticipated return fight against Holly Holm, Rousey was the focus of the UFC’s promos for the event. While that didn’t sit too well with many members of the MMA community, come fight night Amanda Nunes all eyes were on Amanda Nunes as she destroyed Rousey over the course of 48 seconds before referee Herb Dean finally stopped the fight.
Following the fight, many theories and explanations were offered by the combat sports community as to why Rousey lost the fight, most of them targeting Rousey’s underdeveloped striking game and head coach Edmond Tarverdyan.
On a recent episode of ‘Undisputed: With Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe’ Michael Rapaport joined the duo to explain why he feels as though Herb Dean is responsible for a poor stoppage in the fight.
“She got her butt kicked, quickly. You can’t be a fighter and not be able to take a punch, a single punch. The first time Holly Holm punched her, it was over. Amanda Nunes, same thing…done. It’s like being a basketball player, you can do everything but dribble. Like literally, you can shoot, you can rebound, but you can’t dribble, so you could throw him the ball – she cannot take a punch! It’s one of the greatest sport hype machines ever to call her the greatest. The greatest at what? First of all how can you be the greatest at something if you’ve only done it 12 times. She’s 12 and 2, you’re not the greatest if you’ve only done something 12 times.”
“And I don’t like the way she pouted afterwards. She didn’t give Amanda Nunes a ‘pound’ or tell Amanda Nunes congratulations or anything like that. I know she’s America’s lovable arm breaking sweetheart, and they talk about her story and her struggle. Amanda Nunes is an openly gay, Brazilian girl from the bottom of the bottom of the favela’s in Brazil. I’m sure she’s got a fantastic page turning riveting story as well, but it’s only about Ronda Rousey.”
In regards to his thoughts on the stoppage itself, Rapaport believes that the fight should have been allowed to go on a bit longer, much like TJ Dillashaw vs. John Lineker was.
“I think they stopped the fight too soon, and in my opinion that was white girl privilege working at its finest. That guy Lineker that same night, punched in the face, elbows. There’s been so many people in other fights, men and women in the UFC, that have taken more of a butt kicking. She was in trouble, it just seemed so quick. Let her go down, maybe she could recover. She wasn’t, but I think the referee jumped in…”
