Does Ronda Rousey Lose Her Potential UFC Stardom with a Loss?

2012 has turned out to be the year of Ronda Rousey.

There have been countless articles referring to her as the biggest thing in MMA today. Bigger than Anderson Silva, bigger than Jon Jones and perhaps bigger than the sport itself.

Sounds a bit too extreme, doesn't it?

I'm getting a sense of deja vu. We've been down this path before in 2008 when Gina Carano got off to a 7-0 start in her professional MMA career. She became the glowing face of women's MMA and helped give the now defunct EliteXC an identity.

Then something happened, something that most thought would not occur because the talent pool in WMMA was so shallow.

She lost.

Carano faced an overpowering Cristiane Santos in a Strikeforce card that featured the two as the main event. Santos came into the fight with a 7-1 record and steamrolled Carano with a first-round TKO a split second before the first round ended.

Following the loss Carano disappeared from MMA...completely.

As you know, Carano has gone on to pursue an acting career and was last seen negotiating a contract for a role in Fast and Furious 6. As far as her MMA career goes, it died when she lost.

Could the same thing happen to Rousey? I think it could.

As much as we love Rousey now, her popularity will take a nosedive if she loses to Sarah Kaufman later this month in San Diego. In fact, if Rousey were to have lost to Miesha Tate earlier this year would we still be talking about her as much as we are today?

If Kaufman beats Rousey, will Kaufman receive the star treatment Rousey has been getting? Would we still be talking about Rousey being the first woman to have a contract with the UFC?

There are a lot of if's and questions, and I believe that is the best way to summarize WMMA in general. There is certainly a lot of momentum with WMMA right now and I believe the progress of WMMA will depend more on Shannon Knap's Invicta FC success than it will the win-loss record of Rousey.

Ronda Rousey's story is a great one to follow. She's an accomplished fighter and does a great job promoting the sport. If she loses, however, who's to say she won't disappear from the fight scene in the same way Carano did?

Joe Chacon is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and a Staff Writer for Operation Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.