While UFC star Ronda Rousey may not be undefeated anymore thanks to a November knockout by Holly Holm, she’s still one of the world’s most popular athletes. Yahoo revealed this week that Rousey was the world’s most-searched athlete on their engine this year. That’s not all that surprising when you consider everything Rousey’s been involved with and how prominent she’s been all year, though.
Rousey got the year off to a great start by beating Cat Zingano in 14 seconds in February. She then appeared in Furious 7 (which came out in April) and fought Michelle Rodriguez in high heels, released an autobiography in May, appeared in the Entourage movie (which came out in June), and agreed to star in a forthcoming movie version of her autobiography in August. Also in August, she started lobbying for the role of Captain Marvel and argued with Donald Trump, and it came out that she was once one of Sports Illustrated‘s Faces In The Crowd. In September, she agreed to star in a Road House reboot. In October, she hosted SportsCenter and showed Lindsey Czarniak how to put Tim Kirkjian in an armbar. In November, she was announced as the cover athlete for EA’s newest UFC video game and started writing a sex column for Maxim.
Most of those stories don’t have a ton to do with Rousey’s actual athletic performance, but she’s provided plenty of material there too. Her domination of Zingano provoked countless debates about where she stood in the realm of great fighters, and then there are all the stories about her feud with Floyd Mayweather (and claims she could beat him), her displeasure that athletes are tested for marijuana, and analyses of what she actually did in the ring. Heck, Rousey’s in the news again this week thanks to UFC president Dana White saying she’ll get a rematch with Holm. With that and with her upcoming movies (which also include Peter Berg’s action film The Raid and the superhero movie The Athena Project), plus her general penchant for making news both inside and outside of the octagon and being relevant to both hardcore MMA fans and the wider public, Rousey seems likely to be a top search target for some time to come despite the loss to Holm. Don’t look so surprised, Joe Rogan…
[Disclosure: Andrew writes for Yahoo Canada Sports.]
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About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.