WWE was never going to be allowed to have her wrestle a match at Mania anyway so all that is moot. Dana White was never going to risk his top draw getting injured in a pro wrestling match. WWE did all that hype of her without ever having anything even close to a guarantee she would work Mania and the only reports I ever heard about Dana White's end of it was that there was no way he'd sign off on it.

It's not moot; if she was going to appear at the event at all, even as a token celebrity appearance, then whatever value she would be adding to the event is less than what it was before the fight with Holm. That doesn't really seem like a controversial observation unless, of course, you think that her reputation isn't impacted at all by the loss here.

I think her reputation as "unstoppable" is impacted (which was always just more rooted in really good hype from UFC and not so much in reality) but not really her drawing power in the UFC. Especially considering there isn't a bigger main event fight in UFC right now than Rousey/Holms II.

 

But then I don't see where her simply "appearing" at the event was going to have a lot of impact either way unless they went whole hog on having her in a really prominent position like they did with Mike Tyson and I don't see how they could have really done that anyway.

The circumstances are obviously different here, but the fans had no problem buying Brock Lesnar as a killer threat to their franchise ace, John Cena, even though Lesnar was coming in having lost his last fight. Rousey will do just fine if they ever did get her to take part in the show.