Dana White: Rousey’s Spot on UFC 184 Co-Main is About Weight Class, Not Star Power

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For the third time in her last four Octagon appearances, Ronda Rousey will appear as the co-headliner on a card when she defends her bantamweight crown against Cat Zingano at UFC 184.

Previously, the Olympic judoka was the co-main event at UFC 175 against Alexis Davis as well as UFC 168 when she defeated Miesha Tate. In all three of those events, current UFC middleweight ruler Chris Weidman has served as the featured attraction against different opponents.

Weidman again gets top billing at UFC 184, as he takes on Vitor Belfort at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 28. It would seem to be curious card placement to put Rousey, whom Dana White has dubbed the sport’s biggest star, as the co-headliner so often, but the UFC President claims that it has nothing to do with box office appeal.

“It has nothing to with her not being a star. It goes by weight,” White told UFC.com . “If she was the highest weighted champion on the card, she would be the main event, but you have two guys that are middleweights and she weighs 135 pounds -- so she’s the co-main.”

Rousey was initially slated to square off with Zingano at UFC 182, a card headlined by a light heavyweight title bout between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier. However, UFC Tonight recently reported that Zingano’s recovery from a back injury forced the matchup to be moved to Feb. 28.

That the promotion could move Rousey, a Riverside, Calif., native, to a card in Los Angeles so soon after UFC 176 was canceled was just an added bonus.

“The last L.A. / Staples Center fight we had with Aldo killed it. Ticket sales were awesome, and then we had to shut that thing down,” White said. “I just wanted to bring a great card back to L.A. Now we have Weidman versus Belfort and Ronda versus Cat.”