Ronda Rousey downplays any lasting negative effects from her portrayal on The Ultimate Fighter

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Coaching on The Ultimate Fighter didn't wind up being the best experience for UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey, but it's not something she did for herself. The Champ insists her motivation for doing the show was to help bring in more women and give the division more exposure, and on top of that she made relationships with her team that she's taken beyond the show.

"€œIf you think 'The Ultimate Fighter'€™ was the best opportunity knocking on the door for me to do at the time, you'€™re tripping,"€ Rousey said last week when speaking to media in LA (via FoxSports.com). "€œIt needed to be done for those girls."

"These kids are my kids for the long run. I would be shocked if Miesha [Tate] knew where any of her kids were today."

Still, her own reputation took a hit with how she came off on the show. From some catty back and forth between her and Tate, to a number of seemingly unsportsmanlike outbursts after fights, the show certainly didn't feature her at her best.

Rousey believes that's what the producers wanted. She feels that her entire team was manipulated by the production team from the outset, and they got the reactions they were looking for from the "reality" show.

"€We were just really mistreated and really disrespected by the whole production staff and just everybody," Rousey said. "We were instigated and manipulated to get the most dramatic response out of us possible."

However, despite not coming off very well on the show, she's not concerned the negative hit she took is going to be a lasting issue.

€œ"How long ago was it that Kim Kardashian had d**ks in her mouth and now she's selling my little sister shoes? Those examples are encouraging to me. There'€™s no permanent problems."€

Penick's Analysis: Public perception is always a fickle beast to deal with. Though some of it certainly was the way Rousey acted at times on the show, there's no question that there was a lot of editing and manipulation done to produce some of it as well. But Rousey's not wrong about the collectively short memories of the public on things like this. She might take more heat than she had before for a while, but if she hops into the cage and beats up Tate and then defeats someone else, etc., whatever happened on TUF will be a distant memory.

Source: http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_19679.shtml

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