The night of December 30, 2016 was a strange one. Not only for the fans of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), not only for the fans of combat sports in its entirety; but for the fans of sports, in general. In fact, what happened that night, what preceded that night and what followed; influenced not only the world of combat sports, but everyone.
The former Heavyweight champions of the world, be it boxing, kickboxing, MMA, Muay Thai or Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ); everyone had something to say before, during and after the event. Legends in the lighter weight classes in several of the aforementioned combat sports also weighed in on this event.
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From Martial arts royalty to Fight Gurus all around the globe, everyone had something to say.
Pundits of the fight game and combat sports fans apart, even the MMA fans had their own speculation about how this event would play out. And, mind you, this includes not only the hardcore MMA fans but also casual viewers of the fight game.
Every single person had an opinion on this event and unless, you have been living under a rock, you know what I’m talking about. UFC 207- Nunes vs Rousey, or rather, should I say- The Return of the Ronda Rousey show.
UFC 207 marked the first time ‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey would step foot inside the Octagon, after tasting defeat for the first time in her pro MMA career. Her path of demolition and ruthless destruction in the UFC’s Women’s Bantamweight (135 pound) Division was brought to an abrupt halt by the former multiple time boxing world champion and kickboxing wonder child- Holly Holm.
Rousey’s previously unblemished record was tarnished, her mystique was no more. That fight against Holm on 12 November, 2015 marked a passing of the torch in Women’s MMA (WMMA), or so we thought. The title shifted hands from Holm to Miesha Tate and from Tate to Amanda ‘The Lioness’ Nunes.
The division moved on but Rousey’s shadow loomed large, questioning the legitimacy of Holm’s win. Holm, Tate and Nunes have been beaten, all of them have faced defeat. But the only woman who could set the division free. once and for all, went into hibernation, and that, was Ronda Rousey.
Rousey took more than a year off from competing, however, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t training. A couple of months after recovering from the Holm loss, Rousey was back in the gym. She claimed she had vengeance on her mind.
Her coaches claimed she was back, and she was coming for that belt. Around the time of the UFC 205 mega event, the UFC’s first card in New York, that featured three title fights, news broke that Rousey would return at UFC 207 to take on Nunes for the 135 pound belt.
The UFC started hyping up Rousey’s return. Talk shows, press conferences, video promos; the UFC was doing everything right. Just one thing was amiss in the pre-fight buildup to UFC 207, the main attraction was nowhere to be seen.
Apart from pre-recorded video promos, Ronda Rousey was nowhere to be seen. It was revealed that Rousey had negotiated a media blackout deal with the UFC for this event. This is a rarity in combat sports, especially, for an event of this magnitude.
But Rousey had star power and with that comes leverage in negotiations. However, on fight night, none of that mattered. Nunes stopped Rousey 48 seconds into the opening round of the fight becoming only the second fighter to beat Rousey and, thus, handed Rousey her second consecutive loss.
Now, Rousey’s invincible aura has been shattered but that doesn’t change the fact that she still is one of the best fighters on the planet. Regardless, of what her supporters or critics say, in order to cement her legacy, she needs to come back not to win; but to merely prove that she can come back mentally after a loss.
Now, if Rousey returns to the Octagon, here are a few factors that’ll help her rebuild her sufficiently.
#1 Leave Glendale Fight Club and Join A World Class MMA gym
First of all, no surprises here. Edmond Tarverdyan claims to be a world class MMA coach. However, the results of his work speak for themselves. Be it a world class MMA fighter or a rookie, Edmond has, to put it mildly, changed them for the worse.
Regardless of all the internet hate directed at this man, the jokes, memes, etc, it is a fact that world class fighters have kind of unlearned fighting after training under Edmond’s tutelage. Be it Rousey’s love interest Travis Browne or 170 pound veteran Jake Ellenberger, Edmond changed their very foundation; fighters who were on the brink of title contention were sent tumbling outside the ranks of the elite.
Now, the problem with Rousey is that she began training her striking, her boxing, in particular, under Edmond’s guidance. Rousey is a world class judoka, no doubt about it. Is she an Olympic medallist? Absolutely! But she is not an elite striker. She is a grappler, at heart.
‘Striking’ is something that she needs to build into her senses from the ground up. A major issue that exists with Edmond’s training is that he threw Rousey into the deep end of boxing drills before developing basic boxing footwork.
Rousey, to her credit, is a natural athlete. She is a quick learner and a diligent practitioner of martial arts. These qualities have helped her develop decent raw punching power. And for this, only Rousey deserves credit not Edmond; the reason being that Judo involves a lot of utilization of the hip flexors.
The hip flexors of a judoka are fine-tuned after years and years of drilling the wide variety of judo techniques. This technique and this explosiveness can be utilized in the striking arts like boxing, Muay Thai as well as MMA; since MMA allows both striking and grappling.
Rousey has good punching power but the art of stand-up fighting requires much more than just that. It requires footwork, angles, distance gauging, defensive circling, etc. Thus, Rousey is unfamiliar and untrained in a vast amount of the striking aspect of MMA.
The topic of striking, as a whole, is tough to cover over one article but there are some essentials that prove Edmond’s fallacies as Rousey’s coach, particularly in her striking. In almost all her fights Rousey closes the distance by bull-rushing her opponents.
In that process, she walks right into a few of her opponent’s strikes, especially punches. Now, no matter how pillow-fisted your opponent is, if you keep ducking into punches in order to close the distance, those shots add up.
The impact of the strike is doubled when you duck into it. Now, as a boxing coach, it is Edmond’s job to teach Rousey to close the distance without, quite literally, walking into every punch your opponent throws. The art of fighting is basically, hit and don’t be hit.
This is where Edmond made a critical error with Rousey- instead of teaching her to first measure and then close the distance, he let her fall into the rookie habit of walking into range in a straight line. This is where boxing footwork comes in handy. On your first day in a boxing gym, you are first walked through the basics of footwork; then, gradually, you are coached in punching mechanics.
Following that are the boxing heavy bag drills, mitt work, combo drills, etc.
In most of Rousey’s training montage right from her Strikeforce days, you can see her training advanced striking combinations usually ending with a knee or moving into the clinch that allows her to utilize her Judo. Now, Edmond and Rousey deserve credit for ending the combos with a knee (that facilitates the clinch) or simply ending the combo by moving into the clinch.
However, it is the process of entering the correct range for this technique, where Edmond has failed to tutor his pupil.
More on that later. Now, in stark contrast to Edmond and Glendale Fight Club, we have another tutor-pupil duo in Firas Zahabi and Rory Macdonald fighting out of the highly respected Tristar gym in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Now, Macdonald started training at the age of 14 under David Lea but eventually, moved to Tristar to train under Zahabi with the likes of MMA legend Georges St Pierre. That, right there, is what Rousey needs to do right now.
Not necessarily Tristar but any elite MMA gym in the world would suit Rousey. It’s a well known fact that Ronda is fiercely loyal to her team which, unfortunately, means that she won’t relieve Edmond of his services.
Here she can take a page out of Macdonald’s playbook and retain the services of her coach by including him as a part of her new team. Macdonald did it with David Lea, Rousey can employ the same with Edmond; thus staying loyal to her team whilst also ensuring that she is constantly evolving at a world class gym.
The Tristar gym seems the best option for Rousey, as of now, considering the fact that none of the women’s 135 pound elite train there. Also, it would provide her a significant step up in the quality of training partners and striking coaches than her current gym.
#2 Develop basic striking mechanisms
Now, let’s be clear on one thing- Rousey is not a bad puncher. Her striking power with her punches and knees in the clinch is decent. However, she lacks the basic striking mechanisms that allow a powerful striker to throw, connect and land consistently.
This is a huge part of the reason behind her getting tagged repeatedly on the feet even by mediocre strikers like Liz Carmouche. This technical flaw in Rousey’s striking also played an important part in her UFC 193 KO loss to Holly Holm.
Most fans would recollect Holly being touted as one of Rousey’s easiest title defenses. This was partly due to Holm’s high volume striking style. Before fighting Rousey, Holly was criticized for her lack of power, especially, in her punches.
After transitioning to MMA from the world of boxing, Holly mainly used her punches to set up her deadly head kicks. Now, Rousey’s rudimentary footwork had never been tested by an opponent with good boxing angles. Although Rousey has faced decent strikers like Cat Zingano and Miesha Tate in the past, they did not possess the circling and pivoting footwork skills necessary to capitalize on Rousey’s own under-developed footwork.
Against Holm, Rousey could not coast on her raw punching power as her opponent would simply use her feet and circle away- simple but effective, old school boxing footwork. There was one occasion on which Rousey was able to use, what I still believe, is a power advantage in terms of raw punching, over Holm.
Rousey caught Holm with a left hook that had Holm visibly shook. This sequence occurred whilst they were rising to their feet after a brief scramble on the ground. However, apart from that, Holm soundly out-struck her owing to her superior footwork.
Now, we mustn’t confuse the aforementioned footwork skills with ring generalship. Mind you, Rousey is, despite being bereft of basic boxing footwork, actually good at cutting off the cage and trapping her opponents. She does have a good understanding of the striking arts, in general, but just hasn’t conditioned her feet enough to use that understanding and capitalize on it.
Here, conditioning one’s feet does not imply a Strength and Conditioning routine. In this case, I’m referring to the co-ordination between her eyes and her feet. That co-ordination comes from drilling footwork drills right from scratch.
Basically, Rousey needs to start striking from square one. An excellent example regarding a fighter reinventing himself comes from that of Wladimir Klitschko. Wlad has tasted defeat multiple times over his long and illustrious career, however, for him, each fight camp marks the beginning of a new journey.
Every fight camp starts with him drilling the most basic of boxing techniques, techniques that even a beginner would consider too easy. However, this laser sharp focus on the basics and excellent foundation allows him to use his incredible power so consistently come fight night.
It is this focus on the basics and drills that are focused on helping her move like a striker that will enable Rousey to complement her natural athletic ability and raw punching power.
Yet another example of Rousey’s bad footwork impeding her overall game is her most recent fight against Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. Rousey came out in her usual aggressive style looking to land a few punches that are mainly a cover for grabbing hold of her opponent and taking them down to the mat into her world of grappling wizardry.
However, this time, she was facing a more powerful striker than Holm. Amanda’s power is as good as, if not better, than Rousey’s. Plus Amanda generates power in her strikes through excellent striking mechanics and doesn’t simply rely on brute force and raw athleticism to do that.
Rousey tried to grab the clinch on several occasions but Amanda pushed her away, stayed on the outside and pot-shotted her. The finish came incredible quick at 48 seconds of the first round, however, it had more to do with Amanda’s footwork, distance and pivoting than just punching power.
Now, let’s assume that Amanda possessed the same footwork as Rousey, their power being equal. In that case, this fight would played out like a phonebooth brawl and not the technical striking display that Amanda showed at UFC 207.
It was Amanda’s quick feet that helped her roll away from Rousey’s strikes and angle away from Rousey’s clinch attempts.
Rousey should take note from both her aforementioned rivals and channel her energies on developing a level of footwork and movement that is, at least, serviceable in the cage. She doesn’t need to turn into Floyd Mayweather or Stephen Thompson or Muhammad Ali; Rousey simply needs to drill her boxing body movement and footwork drills to the level that enables her to move around the cage without losing her stance and making herself vulnerable to strikes.
That brings us to the point of her non-existent head movement. Head movement is something that is essential not just to improve one’s defense but also to enable one’s offense. Now, head movement and footwork are closely inter-related.
Once a boxer develops basic footwork along with a decent understanding of the concept of head movement, he/she can then successfully implement their other skills such as power, accuracy, etc.
What is important here, is that she drills basic head movement techniques. For that, Rousey doesn’t have to turn into a striking savant. By understanding the nuances of head movement and old school boxing methodologies that help you implement the timeless art of slipping punches, Rousey can develop a strong technical base around her already fantastic athletic base.
By not having to constantly eat shots in order to enter the clinch, Rousey can add an excellent new wrinkle to her game, thereby keeping her relatively fresh when she enters the clinch. This signifies a very pivotal aspect of her fight against Holly Holm.
At UFC 193, Rousey did, in fact, get Holm in the clinch. She also managed to take Holm down, however, the punches that she kept eating before the clinch and ground scrambles had her visibly shook and arguably had a tremendous impact on her failure to submit Holm, when the fight went to the mat.
This lack of a basic striking foundation is what cost Rousey dearly, in her two losses to Holm and Nunes. Two basic lessons- 1. Footwork 2. Head movement.
#3 Use her world class Judo
Ronda Rousey is the daughter of Dr AnnMaria De Mars. De Mars holds the distinction of being the first American to take home Gold at the World Judo Championships. Rousey, herself, is an Olympic bronze medallist in Judo and, for years, successfully implemented several Judo techniques in her MMA fights.
Rousey is a world class grappler- this, in itself, is an understatement. However, somewhere along the line, after she burst out into the mainstream, her team (Coach Edmond, in particular) led her to believe that she is a world class striker.
The point to be noted here is that Rousey has decent punching mechanisms. However, since striking involves many more techniques than just phone-booth punching, she is not an elite striker.
Mind you, she has all the physical tools, financial resources and access to world class coaching staff; in order to become a decent striker. But, her prolonged stay with Edmond, has led to stagnation in the natural course of development of her striking.
Secondly, Edmond’s over-emphasis on making Rousey strike with her opponents for prolonged periods of time, has led to subtle changes in Rousey’s fighting style, at it’s very core. Let us now understand this issue, with two simple examples.
Firstly, Rousey’s fight with ‘Alpha’ Cat Zingano at UFC 184. Now, this part is extremely important since this fight marked a pivotal moment in Rousey and Zingano’s respective careers. Ever since Rousey took the Strikeforce belt off Miesha Tate, a number of MMA pundits felt that if any 135 pound female fighter, ever held a chance at beating Rousey, it was Cat Zingano. This belief grew stronger, when Zingano brutalized Tate in the 3rd round of their slugfest.
If one was given the task to design a female bantamweight fighter, in order to beat Rousey, the design would be something similar to Cat Zingano. Zingano is a strong wrestler with excellent Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). Her Muay Thai is lethal, and even though her defence at boxing range, leaves much to be desired, she makes up for it with her granite chin and iron will.
Furthermore, Zingano has the ability to stop the bull-rush clinch entries that Rousey uses while she enters the clinch, looking to set up her Judo hip tosses. Even for a trip takedown Rousey would have to wade in through Zingano’s vast array of Muay Thai strikes, which involve her deadly knees; knees that Tate can confirm hurt, real bad!
However, at UFC 184, Rousey vs Zingano ended in a flash submission finish, and everyone started lauding Rousey as a miracle worker. The point to be noted, here, is that flash submissions are as much of a reality in MMA, as flash KOs are.
Due to the fight ending in the manner that it did, we were deprived of, what may have been, a significantly intriguing clash of styles between Rousey and Zingano. We learnt from this fight, what we already knew, Rousey’s Judo is as legit as it comes.
We also learnt that Rousey fights smart, to her strengths, instead of playing to the strengths of her opponents.
The second illustration, is that of Rousey’s fight against Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. This fight is the perfect illustration of Rousey falling into love with her wild swinging brawling style. What we need to understand here is that Rousey did not get to the top and stay there so long, by merely being a brawler.
Although the UFC marketed Rousey as a hard-nosed brawler chick, the truth is that Rousey has always had an excellent technical base, for fighting. She has been well-schooled by her mother and her Olympic coaches in the art of Judo. She is, truly, a scary grappling wizard.
However, after her victory over Zingano, Rousey burst out into the mainstream media, even more so, than before. Vine videos of her short and sweet fights with Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano started being circulated, mainstream pop stars started referencing her, all kinds of distractions were knocking on her door.
Rousey’s next fight was against Brazilian brawler, Bethe Correia. Correia is a brawler, so to speak, however, doesn’t carry much power in her hands. In the fight against Correia, we saw a different version of Rousey than her previous fights.
Rousey came out trying to bull-rush Correia, just like every other fight. However, inspite of scoring a trip takedown on Correia, she seemed to be adamant on standing and trading with her. Now, Correia is no prime Mike Tyson, but Rousey simply stood in front of her and turned the fight into a sloppy boxing match.
She caught Correia with a good close range right, and knocked her out. The entire arena cheered, and UFC commentator, Joe Rogan, went on to shower praises on Rousey’s advanced striking skills. Rogan, while speaking to his fellow commentator, Mike Goldberg, ominously stated that we might as well, see Rousey knocking people out with head kicks, in her next fight. In her very next fight against Holly Holm, Holm head kicked Rousey and took away her aura of invincibility. Poetic.
In the fight that followed, Nunes went on to deliver Rousey her second consecutive knockout loss. Now, let’s focus purely on the Nunes fight. Rousey’s stylistic changes led to her neglecting the small openings, that she, in her earlier fights, used to jump on; in order to get the fight to the ground.
This change in her fighting style, at it’s very core, reflected in her win against Correia, her loss against Holm as well as her loss against Nunes. Nunes, on her part, always had the reputation of, at times, over-extending on her strikes. However, since her loss to Zingano, and her move to American Top Team (ATT); she has shored up these (now former) deficencies in her striking.
She has always been powerful, always had knockout power, however, by not over-extending on her strikes, she ingrained a useful quality in herself. This quality would, later on, serve to help her against Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey.
Now, getting back to the Nunes vs Rousey fight, it was brief. However, instead of threatening with her clinch entries like she had done to several opponents, in the past, Rousey took a more stationary stance. She planted her feet and tried to jab against a superior jabber, in Nunes.
Nunes stung her with a few crisp jabs, and then a couple of long, right straights. And that was that. An important aspect of this fight that remained least-discussed was that Rousey tried to initiate the clinch after engaging in an unnecessary jab-fest with Nunes.
Now, although the fight starts on the feet, brilliant strikers, can always be perplexed by strong grapplers. Now, Rousey doesn’t have the traditional single leg takedowns or blast doubles in her arsenal. However, her ability to simply drag her opponents to the ground is unquestionably present.
Much like, the PRIDE FC version of Fabricio Werdum, Rousey could simply pull-guard or even butt-scoot her way into grappling exchanges. However, and her coach Edmond is responsible for this, she adopted a stance that would facilitate her striking, more than a square-on one, that is closer to her Judo roots.
Ronda Rousey is an elite Judoka and a world class grappling savant. Very few people in the world can claim to have either skill-set on the ground. While being gifted with such rich knowledge of the art of grappling, why Rousey has changed her stance, and fighting style, currently, remains a mystery.
#4 Rid herself of coat-tail riders
Now, this part may seem a bit over-recited. However, there is no denying the fact that along with success, come bandwagoners. And a select few of these bandwagoners, succeed in riding the coat-tails of the successful personality, in the equation.
In Ronda Rousey’s case she has encountered such persons in abundance. And much like pre-incarceration Mike Tyson, most of her ‘fans’, seem to have changed their tune about her, ever since she suffered her first pro MMA loss.
Nevertheless, Rousey should take this as a blessing in disguise. In the lead-up to UFC 207, she stated that she has rid herself of all distractions; simply focusing on her training. However, she left out a major source of distraction, unchecked.
That source is her coach Edmond Tarverdyan.
Inspite of the highly publicized feud between Tarverdyan and Rousey’s mother, Dr AnnMaria De Mars, Rousey chose to stay with Tarverdyan. Tarverdyan has been the object of largescale criticism, throughout the MMA community, whether it’s regarding the stylistic changes and failure of Travis Browne’s striking under him, or Ellenberger’s bad losing streak while training at Glendale.
Tarverdyan has unquestionably earned a bad reputation, as an MMA coach. Now, we all know how loyal Rousey is, however, from the viewpoint of tuning out all distractions; she needs to rid herself of this unnecessary part of her entourage.
This, in turn, brings us to Rousey’s on again-off again acting career. While being undefeated and constantly hyped by the UFC, Rousey seemed to be getting offers from every possible Hollywood agent in Los Angeles.
Once she lost and went into seclusion, several news articles about the sudden disinterest of the very same agents in her, were all over the media. Hollywood stars who’d once be eager to be seen at social events with Rousey, now, started avoiding her.
Such is the nature of Hollywood; such is the nature of life in society.
Several Rousey Hollywood movie projects, most notably, Mile 22 with Mark Wahlberg seemed to have altered Rousey’s character in their script, reduced her proposed screen time, or even completely chucked her out of the projects.
Although it is easier said than done, Rousey should learn from these experiences and distance herself from such coat-tail riders, regardless of how big or famous, they may be. Even today, several small-time offers keep popping up for Rousey in different arenas of the entertainment industry.
However, if she intends to test herself in fighting, she cannot afford to entertain such offers.
The ‘Rowdy One’ is a fighter, not a people-pleaser. She needs to stop catering to other people’s agenda. She needs to rid herself of people who are around her, merely for her name value; and surround herself with the people that genuinely care about her.
#5 Rebuild her confidence step-by-step
Rousey’s entire game was built around confidence; sheer, unadulterated confidence. Most fighters, when broken, mentally, exhibit signs of it when they go through the resultant downward spiral in their career.
Now, there is a thin line of difference between being uber-confident and being delusional. I choose to give Rousey the benefit of the doubt, in this case, and feel that Rousey has always had a chip-on-the-shoulder type of unshakeable confidence.
She isn’t foolish enough to be delusional.
That said, after suffering two back-to-back brutal knockout losses, any fighter’s confidence would be shaken, at least to a certain extent. We, as fans, cannot possibly predict what Rousey’s level on confidence is, at the moment.
However, we can attest to the fact that in order to rebuild the confidence of a person, who has gone through such a terrible, highly publicized phase in a sport that is insanely high on emotions; it needs to be done step-by-step.
For all the criticism about Rousey’s head coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, he has never been one, to question Rousey’s confidence. Now, since Tarverdyan, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to have the coaching abilities to go along with his confidence-inspiring speeches; we can agree that Rousey should surround herself with a new authority figure in her training regime.
A big trade up from her current coach would be Greg Jackson at the Jackson-Winklejohn camp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Firas Zahabi at the Tristar gym in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. After all who can forget the inspiring quote directed toward Georges St Pierre by Jackson-‘Hit him with your groin Georges’ (in response to St Pierre telling Jackson that he had torn his groin, between rounds).
However, considering the fact that Holly Holm trains at Jackson-Winklejohn, Tristar would be a better option for Rousey; if only for the purpose of avoiding any gym brawls or awkward training sessions between them.
Furthermore, Rousey can even go back to her Judo roots and build herself up step-by-step. The Klitschko brothers (Vitali and Wladimir) are well-known in the world of professional boxing, for going back to their pugilistic basics before each training camp, especially if they happen to have suffered a devastating loss like Rousey just did.
In conclusion, I would like to state something that may strike fans and MMA pundits as a bit odd, and it is, actually. After all this speculation regarding which gym Rousey needs to move to (Yes, Rousey has to leave Edmond), the most logical solution seems to be Alliance MMA which, much like Rousey’s current gym is also located in California.
The reason behind this is the excellent defensive stand-up coaching that Coach Eric Del Fierro and veterans like Dominick Cruz can provide to Rousey. Besides, Cat Zingano, a former Rousey opponent also trains at the same gym.
Now, if anyone knows how to make a comeback like a champ, it is the ‘Alpha’ Cat.
Zingano looked good in her comeback fight against Pena, and although she lost due to Pena being quite literally a human blanket, she got in the rounds, and shook off the ring rust. If there is any single individual from whom Rousey can learn to rebuild one’s confidence, it is Zingano.
Regardless of what happens moving forward, Rousey will always be a champion, but if she ever does feel the need to step back into the Octagon, she’ll have to do it step-by-step.
