No MMA happening now, watch this instead

in #sportstalk4 years ago

I don't know how long it has been out but I only recently became aware of it. It is called Through my Father's Eyes: The Ronda Rousey Story and I finished it last night. For the MMA fan who is feeling a bit of a "It's TIME!" drought at the moment, this should tide you over for a few days or so.

When Ronda hit the UFC scene, it was an extreme eye-opener. From that point forward I honestly feel as though for the most part, the women's fights are actually quite a bit better (on average) than the men's fights are. I have no idea why that is nor to I know if anyone else feels this way but I was excited every time Ronda took to the Octagon and I still feel that way about many of the women fighters today.


unnamed.webp

Even for a die-hard fan of MMA like me, I was completely unaware of Ronda's rather unusual upbringing and the tragedy of her father's suicide when she was just 8 years old. There were a lot of things that lead to her being the fighter that basically opened the floodgates for women's MMA but the special details how if it weren't for her, this might still be a men's only sport (in UFC.) I say this because Dana White is interviewed in this documentary and is on records stating his timeline about "when do you think there will be women's fights in the UFC?" To which he responded "never!"

Ronda changed all of that.

I know that her fall from grace was a bit of a shock to all of us when she lost to Holly Holm and then at her return was also handily defeated by Amanda Nunes in 2016 - this lead to her retirement from the sport altogether.

The documentary focuses almost entirely on her past and the steps that she took in order to eventually become the highest paid fighter in MMA (men and women) and the pinnacle of her career.

When she was on top of the world she attracted so much attention to the UFC and ended up making fans of loads of people who otherwise might not have been interested in the sport at all. She also inspired tons of other women to get involved in combat sports and well, made a ton of money for herself along the way.


images.jpg

I found director / write Gary Stretch's involvement to be rather self-serving and annoying to the point where you just want him to get out of the scene and focus on who the documentary is actually about instead of redirected attention towards himself and his permanent "sexual predator" look on his face. I bet other people notice this too. We get it Gary, you have great hair for a man your age and you dress well... but this doco is about Ronda... right?

That gets annoying the 48th time the camera spends more time on Gary than on the people he is interviewing, but overall the documentary is really informative. I learned a lot, and Ronda seems like a genuinely nice person but I think we all kind of though that about her anyway. I'm glad I watched it and think other MMA fans will feel the same.

Through my Father's Eyes is currently streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other services