For anyone who doesn’t follow Strikeforce or Olympic judo, Ronda Rousey would have been an unfamiliar name until she recently appeared in the ESPN Body Issue. However, she earned that photoshoot by being 5-0 in her young MMA career and the reigning Strikeforce Bantamweight Champion. And yes, it also helps that she’s rather attractive.

Rousey is very well known for her trash talk as well, being one of the greatest living advertisements in Strikeforce history. So it makes sense that the guys at EsNews would press her for some golden quotes in a recent interview. The reporters asked her which celebrities she’d like to fight, and fed up with the irrelevant question, Rousey finally threw a name out there – Kim Kardashian.

I would beat the crap out of Kim Kardashian, actually. Any girl who is famous and idolized because she made a sex video with some guy and that’s all she’s known for.

Why is everyone slipping it under the cover now? “Oh yeah, she’s selling Skechers to thirteen year olds.” I don’t want some girl whose entire fame is based on a sex video to be selling Skechers to my thirteen year old sister. That’s the horrible kind of role model that I really do not want to be around, why I’m doing things like this: Because girls like Kim Kardashian are being pushed in my sister’s face, and it’s just not healthy. She shouldn’t even have role models like this. And that’s why I’m doing stuff like ESPN Body, because someone needs to do it, for god sakes. (Via Cage Potato)

And therein lies the debate – is Rousey better than Kardashian, the woman she accuses of achieving fame through pornographic means, because she won some fights before she posed somewhat nude for ESPN? The answer is yes. Rousey is much better. She won a bronze medal in Beijing in 2008, and that’s significantly more difficult than leaking a video of Brandy’s brother shooting babies on her chest.

Does that mean that girls should fight other girls because they don’t like them? No. That’s where I disagree with Rousey as a role model. So as long as she keeps the hatred non-violent, Rousey is A-OK with us.

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Photos from the latest ESPN The Magazine Body Issue have landed, and in this year’s issue we get to see Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey in nothing but pink gloves … possibly our only chance to ever do so without being glared at and having our arms ripped off.

The Body Issue is no stranger to MMA stars in the buff, lest we forget last year’s epic Jon ‘Bones’ Jones naked and peeing into a swimming pool effort. Nobody gets it that badly this year, but some of the more bizarre highlights include a naked jockey letting a horse lick his head, a lady with no legs climbing a rope swing and nude sailboat sailing. Maybe they should change the issue topic from “bodies we want” to “bodies we want doing things we wouldn’t be photographed doing with clothes on”.

Anyway, after the jump are a few choice shots from the issue (we can’t include them all, we want you to visit ESPN for that) including Ronda’s full appearance. Naked horse-licked jockey not included.

(you’re welcome)

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I understand that ESPN The Magazine‘s The Body Issue looks to highlight the human body at its athletic peak, but I see no reason why Oakland Raiders placekicker Sebastian Janikowski couldn’t have kicked footballs with his shirt on. The kicking leg is impressive, but the rest of it reminded me too much of that scene in Mallrats where Michael Rooker dances out in a towel and shows his ass.

Two upsides to the video: Janikowski explaining how he became so good (“Just kick it hard as I can!”) and the reminder that Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion/”Gina Carano for real” Ronda Rousey is in there with him. Maybe they can combine the photoshoots and do a Lucy/Charlie Brown thing.

Ah well, this shoot looks at least a little better than “Shadowdick” Jose Reyes and aiming the camera right up Jon Jones’ butthole.

[h/t Sweater Punch]

ESPN The Magazine has released a batch of photos from the 2011 installment of their annual “The Body Issue”, and while full-on nudity isn’t something we can really share with you at With Leather, we can’t see a picture of Blake Griffin dunking with his pants down and not share it with you. It gives the whole “dunking over a car” thing an extra degree of difficulty.

This year’s issue isn’t as conservative as 2009, when most of the athletes were wearing shorts, but it remains tasteful and doesn’t tread near the whole “seeing Patrick Willis’ pubic hair” thing from last year. There are a lot (a lot) of gorgeous women from nearly every corner of the sports world featured, including-but-not-limited-to Hope Solo, LPGA rookie Belen Mozo, foxy roller derby star Suzy Hotrod, the WNBA’s statuesque Sylvia Fowles and the lady pulling a LeBron James in the image up top, Olympic silver medal gymnast Alicia Sacramone. I’m really glad that isn’t LeBron James.

Of course, the following gallery is only a sampling, and you should head on over to ESPN The Magazine The Website to see more, including the pictures I’m not authorized to show you (or, “Wow, time to Wikipedia the sh*t out of Stephanie Gilmore”). Also, consider buying the magazine itself, if that’s your bag. Now please click through and laugh at that weird picture of Jon “Bones” Jones peeing in his swimming pool.

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