‘Saturday Night Live’ preview: Ronda Rousey, Beck Bennett go toe-to-toe

This weekend “Saturday Night Live” is getting its annual infusion of sports, and it is coming courtesy of one that doesn’t always get a lot of mainstream attention: Mixed-martial arts. Ronda Rousey is hosting the episode (featuring musical guest Selena Gomez), and the first promo below makes it clear that Beck Bennett only has two different speeds around her: Wanting to be with her romantically, and wanting to prove that he is not a total wuss.

It is rather nice to see Beck actually get some promo time for a change, and he’s game for a lot of different stuff. He tries hitting on her and wearing a wrestling outfit complete with signature move. He brings a ton of energy, and these two have a pretty good rapport going.

The main question with Rousey in particular to us is how she will cope from an environment so different than what she is used to. Sure, she does do live fighting, and she has acted before, but doing the two at the same time and getting laughs for it is an entirely different story. Our main hope is that the show does feature some of her other interests beyond just having her beat everything up … which would be the most predictable route in the world for the show to take.

This episode does quite a bit to live up to. While we know that there are some out there who felt like the Adam Driver episode was rather lackluster in the writing / originality department, we nonetheless found it funny thanks to his performance and the enthusiasm he had for being there.

Speaking of Driver, head over here to watch some clips from his episode of the show right away! Also, you can sign up right now over here to score some additional TV news on everything we cover, sent right over to you via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)