It was a coincidence, mostly.
Kobe Bryant and Ronda Rousey, the most prominent male and female athletes in Los Angeles, picked Saturday, Feb. 28, as their night on center stage. Bryant debuted his long-awaited documentary on Showtime around the same time Rousey was marching into the Octagon at Staples Center to face Cat Zingano at UFC 184.
But while Bryant's documentary felt like an honest, surprisingly vulnerable retrospective on a career that is winding down, Rousey's explosive 14-second fight felt like the beginning of something new.
Yes, Rousey has been a superstar for a while now. But this fight elevated her to a new level. She's now squarely in her prime. The part of her career in which she can be as picky with the things she chooses as Meryl Streep's character at a photo shoot in "The Devil Wears Prada." The "asks" are rolling in faster than she can read through them -- endorsements, TV appearances, interviews, movie roles, you name it.
"You send her a script and she reads it in 24 hours on her iPhone," said her agent, Brad Slater.
She's already selected her next roles: She'll appear in the "Entourage" movie; another film, "The Athena Project" is reportedly in the works; and a just-announced starring part in "Mile 22," a Peter Berg-produced action movie.
Her autobiography, "My Fight/Your Fight," written with her older sister, Maria Burns Ortiz, is due out in May.
Then there are the endorsement deals, an appearance at the South by Southwest film festival and whatever fight she decides to take next. (Click here to engage on that debate.)
Nowhere was Rousey's clout more evident than at the postfight news conference on Saturday night. Zingano, still stunned from the 14-second fight, was begging for a second chance.
"I just want to know what I need to do to get in three again," Zingano said directly to UFC president Dana White, who was standing about three feet away at the podium. "Who's No. 2? I'll fight them to get back."
White nodded and said: "I need fights. We'll get it done."
Rousey nodded too. She's open to fighting Zingano again. She told Zingano as much after the fight as she tried to console her in the Octagon.
"I think she definitely deserves another shot," Rousey said. "Sometimes fights just go down like that. I have a lot of experience in judo. There were times I just walked out and got dumped on my head right away. I just wasn't myself that day. It didn't mean that I didn't deserve to be in that fight that day, or that I couldn't beat that person. It's just for some reason, I wasn't there. I understand that feeling and I know what Cat is capable of. And I would definitely like to see more of what she's capable of."
But then in the next breath, she acknowledged she was planning to take a few months off from fighting to go film a movie ... and fielded questions about fighting Cris "Cyborg" Justino or Holly Holm or Bethe Correia.
It didn't mean she was insincere about fighting Zingano again. It's just one of the options she'll eventually decide on. It's her shot to call -- the potentially seven-figure payday will be there whenever and whomever she chooses to fight.
It is a beautiful moment to be in. And after working so hard to arrive at it, Rousey says she'll take some time to bask in it. But folks like her or Bryant tend to get restless pretty quickly. They climb one mountain, look out over the valley below and end up focusing on the next peak at the end of the skyline. It's how they're wired. It's how they got there in the first place.
When Rousey started working with Slater four years ago, she told him she would one day put as much energy into acting as she did into fighting. Then two months ago, as they were out at lunch with her trainer Edmond Tarverdyan at an Armenian spot in Glendale, she reminded him.
"She got up to leave and I'm like, 'Where are you going?'" Slater said. "She's like: 'Acting lessons. I'm taking them twice a week.'"
That was a few months ago. Rousey cut those out as the fight with Zingano drew near. Despite the lightning-fast ending, Zingano was a formidable opponent. Rousey respected her. You could tell that in her prefight commentary. And you could really tell that when she entered Staples Center on Saturday night.
She gets this look when she steps into the cage. Her shoulders shift forward. Her eyes cast downward as she avoids eye contact. Her jaw juts out. Then she starts to walk. It is utterly terrifying. The second her shoulders shift forward, the entire arena feels her rage. It's almost as if her eyes light up and turn red like some Terminator as she gets into her zone.
This is all you really need to see to know Rousey is a superstar who can carry her own main event. White read the box office and attendance numbers at the start of the news conference as a way of confirming it, and he said the PPV buys were tracking well.
But when you see that walk, you just know something special is going on. It's what makes her fascinating beyond the Octagon. It's why Staples Center was filled with people wearing "Rowdy" T-shirts on Saturday night. That's her nickname, yes. Her brand. But it's also the legacy she hopes to leave behind.
There's this wonderful scene in the espnW Nine for IX short film on Rousey where she's training with Tarverdyan very early in the morning at the beach. He's putting her through a hellacious workout. In between sparring sessions, she stops and says to the camera that she doesn't need anyone to act or talk like her one day. She just needs to do enough while she's in the spotlight to help make it easier for others to feel empowered to say or do whatever's on their minds.
That time is now. The spotlight is firmly on her now. She can call all her own shots. Let's see which roles she chooses.