UFC asked fighters to congratulate Ronda Rousey on Twitter for SI cover

Back in February, Ronda Rousey became the first MMA fighter to appear in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated announced that it would be honoring Rousey once again — this time for her dominance inside the Octagon.

Rousey is prominently featured in the May 13 issue of Sports Illustrated, and she is only the second MMA fighter ever to grace the cover of the magazine. She was also labeled the “World’s Most Dominant Athlete.”

That’s obviously an incredible accomplishment for Rousey, and several of her fellow UFC fighters took to Twitter to congratulate her for it. Unfortunately, we have to wonder if some of them were coerced.

Nice to see all those congratulations from Ronda's peers were from the heart. pic.twitter.com/ixA4sB71rz

— FrontRowBrian® (@FrontRowBrian) May 12, 2015

You can see a roundup of many of the congratulatory tweets here.

In all likelihood, some of the tweets were genuine and some were a product of the UFC’s memo. None of them will have an impact on whether or not Rousey does this to her next opponent.