Being an Olympian and UFC Champion isn’t enough for Ronda Rousey; she’s added actress to her list of hyphens. With small parts in Entourage, Furious 7 and The Expendables 3, Ronda is reported to have been cast in the comedy Do Nothing Bitches with Tina Fey. In an attempt to workout her comedic muscles, Ronda hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend. Other than attending the Marine Ball in December and being one of Barbara Walters most interesting people of 2015, she has been laying low since November after Holly Holm knocked her out during their championship fight. The most notable part of Ronda’s SNL monologue was that she opened by congratulating Holly on the fight “Holly deserved to win.” Given Ronda’s tactic of talking smack, this was a good show of sportsmanship. The “joke” was for her to silence the crowd as soon as they started to applaud. With a more seasoned comedian, this would have been funnier but Ronda’s inexperience made it a bit awkward. However, given how hard Ronda took that loss, I am still giving her credit for the gesture. Here’s some of what Ronda said in her SNL opening:
UFC star Ronda Rousey’s first time hosting Saturday Night Live this weekend was special for multiple reasons.
First, as she told the audience in her opening monologue, “It’s the first time i’m (sic) going to be live on television without getting punched in the face!”
But: “It’s also the first time I’m talking to my fans since my loss to Holly Holm in November,” Rousey said, referencing her brutal knockout and subsequent swirl of speculation over how she might recover from that fight.
Rousey wanted to make clear in her monologue that the November bout “was a fight that Holly deserved to win, and I just wanted to take a minute to sincerely congratulate her.”
But after a millisecond of applause, Rousey sliced her hand through the air with a smirk – “that’s enough!”
A video of the monologue is below if you want to see the whole thing. As SNL often does with non-comedian hosts, Ronda’s monologue had an assist from other cast members, including musical guest Selena Gomez singing a few lines of her song “Come & Get It.” The monologue turned into a spoof of a fighter/coach scene in which the coach (Kenan Thompson) gave Ronda tips on how to knockout the audience with jokes as two sportscasters critiqued her approach. I thought it worked because the writers poked fun at their own formulaic approach to monologues. Now if they would only write a short bit about how they drag out their jokes way too long.
As for her other skits, Ronda did a decent job with what she had to work with. Other than some unfortunate skits on topics including bullying, statutory rape by a teacher and overly aggressive schmucks bugging women in a bar, she did appear in a few funny ones. Vulture has a nice breakdown and videos of most of the skits here. Of hers, I think the Superhero skit was my favorite.
As for the rest of the show, the cold open with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Darrell Hammond as Donald Trump was great and the SAG Awards skit skewering the lack of diversity in Hollywood was so on point, it was almost a return to the level of original SNL parodying.
Photo credit: FameFlynet and WENN Photos
Disgusting. Let’s all applaud while two human beings hit each other in the face, body and head until one of them is unconscious. What could be better, except if they killed one another? Savage, blood thirsty “sport.” This sickens me.
Meh. No one’s holding a gun to their heads making them fight. To reduce UFC to “human beings hitting each other” is unfair. These people train in many diverse fighting styles, and it takes a lot of skill and perseverance.
Lots of unhealthy, unwise and unsavory things require skill and perseverance.
… but why shouldn’t we reduce it to that, when Ronda posts comments like these before fights:
” I see through your fake sweet act now – you’re getting your a** kicked tomorrow, and I’m really going to enjoy the beating I give you”
Yep, it’s definitely popular because of the skill and talent on display, not the fact that people are beating each other up on live TV…
There’s trash talking in every sport. So what? Of course not everyone is going to enjoy watching it, as it is a very violent sport, but I still think respect for the athletes is warranted. People who aren’t familiar with MMA can’t appreciate the sport for what it is, I guess.
Jay, I’m actually very familiar with MMA and have done BJJ for years.
Yes, there’s trash talking in every sport. But in this case, Ronda herself is detracting from the “sport” of it when she says she will enjoy the “beating” she gives her opponent. She didn’t say she would enjoy beating her — as in, defeating her — but that she was looking forward to an act of physical violence against someone she doesn’t like.
Her own words prove she doesn’t “appreciate the sport for what it is”. Sports are about skill, not personal vendettas. But the more people focus on the beatings and the violence and who deserves to be pummeled, the more it takes away from a fight’s merit as a sporting event.
And yes, I apply the same standard to male boxers and MMA fighters who trash-talk about beating each other up. She’s just the one being discussed here.
I don’t think she’s detracting from the sport with her trash talking. It all seems like pretty standard trash talk to me, and she’s good at it.
It’s not for everyone GNAT, so I don’t blame you for not liking it or try to convince you that you “should” like it. I will point out that most bouts don’t actually end with anyone unconscious . Boxing is repulsive to me, but I love MMA.
I can’t help but feel the same way GNAT. I looked at one of the pics in a link of her getting cleaned up, her face and lip bloodied, and I wondered what the gain is? How do you feel good because you KNOCKED SOMEONE OUT? And why would people willingly want to do that? If you want skill do jujitsu or something.
This sports isn’t for everybody like someone already said but neither is boxing or karate.
I haven’t watched SNL in years. Too much off point “humor”
I don’t give her props. She has a history of bad sportsmanship to her opponents and has been a bit of a bully. She is eating crow because of the backlash after she lost. Instead of showing her face she ran and hid. Instead of concentrating on training, she is taking on all of these acting jobs and tv appearances.
I thought she won the fightI because I see her all over. I didn’t know that she’s the one with the nasty attitude that got beat up.
Ms. Columbia. Same thing. I know who she because she’s also all over. No idea who the winner is.
It’s kinda crazy.
Holly Holm is a local gal from Albuquerque, NM, we love her! She is a very good sport and a great athlete. She seems to train instead of “talk” too much.
But don’t all fighters do that? Granted I don’t follow the sport but I remeber a guy trastalking Kličko before a fight. Doesn’t that come with most of these fighters?
I am a big fan of Ronda.To me,the way she congratulated her ,she said it like she wanted to get that out of the way,like smth she just had to say.I liked the skit with the bullies.
Did anyone else think that Ronda put in a lot less face time than most other hosts? It almost seems like they put her on the skits the bare minimum they could. One of the skits didn’t even have her in it and in the ones she was in it seems like they gave her the bare minimum number of lines.
Not just you she was barely in the ep. Good thing too because she was terrible. I wish people would stop trying to make her happen. The best part was the #oscarssowhite spoof and Palin spoof
They often seem to do that with non-actor hosts. A few of the athletes have been good and able to hold their own, but a lot of the non-actor hosts are stiff and uncomfortable, and get little screen time.
I don’t think Ronda should get any credit for having one brief moment where she acts like a decent human being. I really can’t stand her https://www.instagram.com/p/-DMAcAhESQ/
This this this this!
I don’t know what to think of it. It didn’t sound genuine to me. But Ronda is not a good actress. Maybe she felt awkward to acknowledge the victory.
Girlfriend could not act her way out of a cardboard box. The way she deadpans and delivers her cheesy lines in Fast 7 is painful to watch, but that’s not saying much considering you usually don’t have to be able to act to be in one of those movies.
To be fair, Meryl Streep would struggle to deliver some of the cheesy lines that are said in those movies.
It is a shame that this dog and pony show is overshadowing her substantial achievements at the Olympic level. The fact that she’s still front and center rather than the woman who defeated her speaks volumes of UFC’s management-Ronda sells, Holly evidently doesn’t. Any bets that this rematch-if ever- is pushed to 2017 at the earliest? And if its tentatively scheduled for 2016, well, stuff gets postponed all the time.
I love Ronda Rousey, but she deserved to lose that fight. She was not prepared and she was not fighting intelligently. It was pretty clear that she went in cocky and didn’t seem to have much of a strategy beyond “beat down” which, to be fair, has been working for a while for her. Holms, on the other hand, did her homework. I’m really looking forward to the rematch. It think it’s pretty damn cool to see a female athlete of any kind draw the kind of crowds and viewers that she does, and I honestly think the backlash against her has had more to do with her gender than with her crimes against UFC.
I love Ronda! She has a fierce spirit and her determination to succeed is inspiring. She was okay on SNL but i wasn’t expecting her to blow us away with her acting. Haters gonna hate.
It’s funny, I used to detest boxing and MMA was even worse, until I watched it. There is a lot of skill and let’s be honest there are some VERY bad sports in non contact sports.