By now, you might have heard the surprising news: Ronda Rousey is coming out of hiding in a big way and will host Saturday Night Live on January 23 alongside musical guest Selena Gomez. To say that the former UFC champ has been out of the limelight would be an understatement. Since November, she’s barely been seen outdoors or online. And the glimpses we got of her were often not that pretty.
If laughter is the best medicine, then Ronda will be in good hands with SNL. The appearance also shows that Rousey is still serious about branching out beyond mixed martial arts and being seen as more of a general entertainer. Where 2015 was the year of Rousey in the octagon, 2016 might be when she really flexes her muscles outside of a cage.
Consider this: According to her bosses at the UFC, Ronda Rousey has two movies she’s scheduled to film over the next six months. Add in this SNL hosting gig and you’ve got her spending the majority of her time on television and movie projects unrelated to fighting. Where many pundits are telling her to jettison the extra-curricular activities, it seems like she’s doubling down on them. And why wouldn’t she?
Ronda has already commented that a second loss to Holm could mean the end of her fighting career. Before that, she was saying she didn’t want to keep fighting into her 30s. The fighting thing always had an expiration date, it just may be coming sooner now rather than later. This Saturday Night Live gig is a great opportunity for Rousey to show off what acting classes have done for her, and see if the world still loves itself some Rousey without the aura of invincibility she carried through most of her career.
How SNL goes is going to be an important bellwether for the rest of Ronda’s 2016. Will she come back to accolades and love? Or will it be another opportunity for the internet to talk smack and remind her how she got brutally knocked out by Holly Holm?
The pressure will be on her to perform, but the reaction people have will be largely outside of her control. There will be no clear cut winner at the end of this like in her fights. The public will see her however they want to see her, and if the haters drown things out, it could spell trouble for her Hollywood ambitions.
