The Conor McGregor fight was supposed to be the explosive return of the UFC's most popular fighter of all time, and ended up being a 15-second dud of a moment. The chief highlight of that fight ended up not being what happened in the ring, but outside it.
The WNBA's Sophie Cunningham was a ring girl that night, and according to UFC boss Dana White, she wasn't even supposed to do that. She was literally hired eight minutes before she did it because she was there and expressed she wanted to do it to White, who wasn't about to turn down the opportunity to have one of the most popular women in America precede one of the most anticipated fights of the year.
If only the WNBA was as smart as Dana White... pic.twitter.com/DZ9C90ajeg
— Sports Patriot (@SportsPatriotUS) July 12, 2026
Naturally, this got my brain thinking about the deeper reason behind her presence there, but I didn't have to think long. It all revolves around this moment.
The fact that Sophie triggered almost an entire league with just a simple point of a finger is just crazy motion 😂😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/7paK3NxFLC
— Ashwin (@Sudharsan_ak) June 27, 2026
But why was this moment so important?
It's because of the abuse of this woman.
Caitlin Clark got punched in the throat & stepped on by Alyssa Thomas.
— Jon Root (@JonnyRoot_) June 25, 2026
No foul, of course 🙄 pic.twitter.com/peBy5K3kfi
Clark is the best player in the WNBA, and that's created backlash against her that goes well beyond mean looks and snide comments. Clark has been punched in the throat, had her eyes hen-pecked with nails, been purposefully decked and pushed to the ground, and meanwhile, the WNBA takes next to no action to actually make the abuse stop.
It's not just that either. The league tends to do what it can to minimize Clark's fame. If the WNBA had any marketing sense, they'd be putting Clark's face on everything they could. Moreover, they'd be featuring her quite a bit. The cameras wouldn't be off her, either on or off the court, and I think it's odd that, despite her real draw to the game, Nike only recently decided to put her front and center.
My colleague, Bonchie, actually pointed this out well.
The hatred the WNBA has for its golden goose is just astonishing, and they aren’t going to stop until she’s permanently injured.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 25, 2026
Keep in mind, the league named A’ja Wilson as their most marketable player, putting Caitlin Clark third.
What do the ratings actually say? https://t.co/5K5SYUaTk4 pic.twitter.com/qDXV5LsCoT
Why? It's pretty obvious, but no one in the WNBA is saying it, and the media dismisses the idea as if it's laughable, but it's kind of hard to deny it.
Clark is white, and a lot of the abuse being thrown at her is from black players. The thing going unsaid is that the WNBA is gaining popularity, and that popularity is resulting in ticket sales, and a lot of that is thanks to Clark, a white woman, and the WNBA's star player wasn't supposed to be white. It's supposed to be a celebration of black women, but all eyes are on Clark.
Or they were all on Clark. Now all those eyes have to split time between her and Cunningham, because Clark is your consummate sportswoman. She plays her best, tries to have a good attitude, and is generally passive about the abuse she receives, letting her skill as a player be the real slap in the face to those who literally assault her.
But Cunningham, while a good player, will just as likely put you on the ground as she would a ball in the air, and what's more, she quite often does so to either protect or avenge Clark. Cunningham isn't afraid to defy or even physically confront black players, thus leading to the pointing incident that took the world by storm.
And in this way, Cunningham has become something of a representative figure of defiance against the obvious racism against white people that you're not supposed to talk about.
But it's more than even that.
Cunningham's defiance isn't just seen as trolling racist players; it's seen as defiance against a system that consistently pushes white people lower on the totem pole in the name of diversity, inclusion, and, to a larger extent, a globalist agenda of "enrichment."
This is the WNBA's own fault for being a smaller system in a grander system that backs this kind of agenda. The proof is undeniable that it discriminates constantly. If you can blatantly foul a white player and have the ref shrug it off as the WNBA borderline refuses to acknowledge the obvious discrimination happening on and off the court — just like the media and leftist organizations do in the greater world — then anyone who defies that obvious evil, pushes back and mocks it, would become a star.
She'd probably never admit it herself, but that's what she is. A symbol of defiance against a very obvious evil that too many want to pretend isn't present, and that's why we can't get enough of her.
