5 Reasons Rousey Is A Bigger Household Name Than Leila Ali

“You’re not famous until my mother has heard of you.”~ Jay Leno

In an interview published by Fight Hype early in late 2015, Floyd Mayweather considered retired women’s boxing champ Laila Ali a victim of a racist system that praised white UFC fighter Ronda Rousey for her accomplishments but did not heap such glory upon Ali during her career.

“But you look at things like this, Ronda Rousey, you know, I think she fought somewhere like 11 or 12 fights, which is not a bad thing. Laila Ali went undefeated and was dominating too,” Mayweather said. “After Ronda Rousey fought I think 9, 10, 11 fights, it didn’t even take that long, she got all types of endorsements, movies, and everything. Laila Ali did the same thing in better fashion. Ronda Rousey, she’s a good looking woman when she put it on. Laila Ali is a drop-dead gorgeous woman; I mean a naturally beautiful woman and can kick ass, but you never heard them [the media] saying when she had I think somewhere around 10, 11, 12 fights that she was the baddest woman to ever fight on the planet.”

I’d be naive to try to tell you that race was a 100% non-factor in the media’s perception of Laila Ali as a superstar athlete. The lack of honest racial conversation that we have as a country exemplifies that. But, I do believe context is very important when making a comparison of events that occurred over 10 years apart, and in different sports no less. Mayweather’s rant intrigued me for many reasons and I asked myself: Why WAS Ronda Rousey more of a household name than Laila Ali? After some research, I came up with a short, but stacked, list.

5) Lack of True Competition
I’ll admit when I first saw Laila Ali’s professional fight record I was quite impressed. But with closer examination a few things became apparent. Ali has been accused of ducking certain top level fighters in her career. Her big fight against Jacqui Frazier-Lyde was against a woman who started her pro career at age 38(!), mainly due to the opportunity to avenge Joe Frazier’s loss to Muhammad Ali. Ali’s bout with veteran Christy Martin was when Martin was 35. Other wins, upon watching the fights themselves, turned out to be premature stoppages or against sub par opponents who threw aimless punches while Ali broke down their lack of defenses. It’s clear by watching a few of her fights she was lights years ahead of most women’s fighters. By comparison, Rousey was booked against top notch veterans once she began to fight on television. Sara Kaufman, Meisha Tate, Liz Carmouche, Cat Zingano and Holly Holm were all under the age of 30 during their bouts with Rousey and are at a much closer skill level to the former champ.

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