UFC womens bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is apprehensive about her coaching stint on this season of The Ultimate Fighter on Fox Sports 1, which premiered on Wednesday. Rousey serves as one of the two coaches on the show, facing off with rival Miesha Tate, and according to a report from USA Today, she's a bit worried for the opinions of the public to be skewed against her.
"How could people possibly know who you are from a couple of clips of a video that people are seeing out of context?" Rousey asked. "That's no way for people to get to know you, so I'm just preparing for people to get the worst idea of who I am."
During the premiere episode, you definitely got a vibe that Rousey was all business, while Tate was much more loose and relaxed. In an interview with Loretta Hunt of Sports Illustrated, Tate seemingly supported Rousey's suspicions about how she'll be portrayed by bashing the champion's behavior during filming.
"I think that really boils down to some kind of insecurity on her part. Everybody sees Ronda Rousey as the big bada– UFC champion chick. Don't get me wrong: she's awesome, but she's not Superwoman," said Tate. "She showed her true colors, and people are going to see that. She's a very emotionally charged person, and with her and me around each other all day, she wasn't able to conceal it that long. You could tell she was bursting at the seams. She was very angry all of the time. "
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"She was difficult to work with, not just with myself, but with the people trying to make the show possible," said Tate. "She's not nice in a lot of ways. There's no way around that. They'd literally have to cut all of her interactions with me and cut her out of the show to portray her any differently. I think she knows that and is embarrassed by it now."
In an interesting aside, it almost seems like the UFC tried to do some damage control before the airing of the premiere. On Monday, a one-hour documentary entitled Breaking Ground aired on Fox Sports 1, profiling Rousey's youth, judo career, and MMA career, along with all of the personal hardships she's underwent along the way. The documentary was a unique look into Rousey's life, and made her much more likeable in my opinion. However, 12 straight weeks of Rousey taking verbal jabs at Tate might undo any of the goodwill the documentary generated.
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About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.