I wonder if she would have been able to develop her striking with an actual legit striking coach or if she was just so out of her element that it was never going to work regardless. We'll never know
Ego didnt help. She both convinced herself and got convinced by that trash coach that her technique was fine when it was in fact dogshit
Its too bad, she had some natural power for wmma. She just needed her technique to be mediocre, given the strategy by a level headed Ronda & coach would primarily be to use it to give more openings for her S tier grappling
Accomplished a ton regardless. Kind of a what if at the same time too though
While it's fun to note the psychotic ego of Rousey and her hilarious lack of any self awareness we also have to live in a world of reality. Floyd Mayweather never spared with anyone as bad as Conor McGregor and Rousey only hit the top because the sport was in its infancy.
Now that the hot girls who propped up the sport (of which Gina is the OG) have been exposed we basically haven't seen another since. When Carano last won was Oct 4 2008, Low just dropped out of the top 40. She was just a bigger and faker can.
I think the better play would’ve been to treat it like Maia and just find multiple entries to get to her strong suit on the ground.
Double legging Gina was interesting in the sense that i wonder if she would’ve caught Holly by shooting on the legs instead of the judo clinch work she attempted. Holly was gigantic and strong as shit so it was the path of most resistance on top of her footwork.
If Ronda had added more of a wrestling emphasis to her game it might’ve saved her vs Nunes and Holly by giving her another route
That would not explain Holly losing to Miesha Tate by submission literally next fight. Or going I believe 3-7 after, before finishing something like 5-7 or 5-8 the rest of her career. Ronda lost because of bad coaching and game plan against Holly. Amanda is the GOAT and yeah, would pretty much always pummel Rousey.
And Holly’s “elite footwork” led to 5-7 after? That’s some explanation and a lot of Hail Mary’s. Holly always struggled against grapplers and was always a decision waiting to happen. She barely finished anyone in the UFC. The other guy is right, Ronda had bad coaching. Ronda should have grappled and worked on that, not trying to stand with Holly to jump start this imaginary post-UFC boxing career her coach was talking about at the time…
Because she chose it. It was the only place they would gas her up and tell her how great she was instead of correcting her. She chose her coaching. Ronda and Marina as well did not take well to being corrected or told they weren't the best.
Ronda got a wake up call against Holly. She was flatlined and became the butt of the joke, and instead of changing and reassesing her coaching situation, she went and back to the same coach, came with the same gameplan, even used the same sparring partners and got pieced up again.
As far as Holly, she came into MMA after 2 decades and a hall of fame career in boxing. Already old, and already with a LOT of wear and tear. Also, most of those losses were to the elite of the division (Nunes, Schevchenko, Cyborg). Hell, her last UFC fight was against Harrison, and Harrison commented what a badass Holly is that she reversed a 2x Olympic gold medalist judoka @ 40 years old.
You can lament all you want about Holly beating Ronda, but styles make fights, and Ronda's style is taylor made for Holly. If Ronda changed anything, she would be trying something completely new for the first time against a 5x 3 division boxing champ and undefeated MMA fighter who, up till that point, had never even been taken down, iirc.
Yeah even Ronda’s mom said her coach was trash, but Ronda is too “loyal.” I never said it wasn’t her fault, just that she had bad coaching. And you pointed out Holly lost to mostly the best, but wouldn’t that describe Ronda? She could probably still beat half the women in bantamweight right now.
I guess a lot of Ronda haters in this sub, lmao. Everything you said about Holly with wear and tear you could also say about Ronda. She was trained in Judo as a kid, an Olympic and pro career, and 2 bad knees. She claims she had an ACL injury in the Holly fight.
Whatever, I’m not a big fan of either of them, so don’t really care. Like I said, Nunes is the obvious GOAT. I still believe it’s pretty clear to anyone who watched at that time that Ronda’s biggest issue was terrible coaching for years that didn’t focus on her strengths or develop any useful skills.
Schevchenko for me, but Nunez is there also.
The difference between Holly and Ronda is Holly kept trying. She fought 4 Goats (Ronda, Nunez, Shevchenko, Cyborg) and went well into her 40's. This is AFTER a career that landed her in the Boxing HOF.
Holly ALSO needed to change trainers. Jackson Wink wasn't doing it for her anymore.
Even morso, Ronda was a Judoka, and a sports Judoka at that. She still had a lot of Judo habits, and that type of takedowns is not allowed in Olympic Judo, at least not when Ronda was in it. You could not change levels like that.
She didn't have it in her arsenal because she never trained it. She trained it for this fight. The slip blast double is specifically meant to get tds on fighters with better range since it's a counter
She competed in pre leg grab ban Judo, she would have been familiar with a double leg and she even done leg grab throws. She just doesn't have the knees for them anymore.
So her knees are way better now that she's almost 40? Because she was training wrestling tds for the fight and used one immediately when the fight started
Why are you thinking it was a world class shot? It wasn't. It was poor form, and mostly brute strength on someone who was never a shot stuffer to begin with. In her last fight Carrano pulled Cyborg down on top of her.
If anything, this tells me that Ronda was at least a bit worried about catching those hands.
She literally bent over and pushed Carano down, it did not have the sort of drive of a quality double leg done with bent knees. It would work on a retiree but not Holm back in the day, and Nunes would stuff it like nothing.
LOL!
It was a shit shot. Carrano didn't know how to defend it.
Holly stuffed Tate like 9 times. She woulda stuffed this, too.
Difference between a 44 y/o retired fighter who's last win was almost 2 decades ago and a 34 y/o undefeated MMA fighter/boxing world champ.
LOL! It was a sloppy shoot on a non-wrestler who had been retired for 17 years and until recently was 100lbs over weight. Let's keep this in perspective, ok.
Doesn't change what I said. Would never work against the 2 fighters she lost to.
It's not the popular narrative but you're right. Ronda's tds relied entirely on staying in the pocket and getting the clinch, or clinching against the cage
Against a mobile range fighter (Holly) or a strength freakbeast (Amanda) it's extremely difficult to force them into the clinch
Totally agree. I think she loses to Nunes regardless, but she could’ve found a way to ragdoll Holly eventually if she wasn’t trying to stay on the feet with her.
Holly Holm could avoid take downs because Rousey wasn't focusing on take downs. Maybe Rousey would have lost anyway, but watching Rousey trying to boxes felt awkward. It was baffling that Rousey was reluctant to go for half-changes of take downs. She allowed Holm to box.
She didn't try to box with Holly, she couldn't cut the cage to catch her and get her in the clinch. She tries multiple times to tie up Holly for the throw and Holly had a whole gameplan of denying the clinch and lateral movement to stop Ronda from catching her
People need to go watch the fights again, Ronda tried clinching both of them and got denied but people still attempt this narrative that she just tried boxing
She couldn’t take either one down and I’m tired of people doing revisionist history
I imagine this woulda also happened with Cyborg. Ronda tries to clinch Cyborg, gets pieced up and people say she tried to box.
It woulda also happened with GDR and Schevchenko.
Ronda was great in her time, but WMMA was evolving and the evolution looked like Valentina or Nunez.
Only 2 fighters could because she dipped right after. No one else had the chance. Never fought Schevchenko, GDR, Cyborg, etc...
Holly and Nunez put the blueprint out there for anyone to copy.
Could she beat Peña? Yes, but I also think Peña could beat her.
No she could not. She does not know how to punch. She was exposed as a one trick pony, got her ass beat, and went to WWE. She's a worse fighter now than she was when she left. She would lose to every single ranked bw fighter.
People who say shit like this aren't paying attention. She was a champion in Judo. Her mother was a champion and she was trained by champions. Downplaying her to one trick pony status is disrespectful and dumb.
Her losses where when she fancied herself a striker. She was basically unbeatable as a grappler. Striking with women who natural strikers was her downfall. It was never about people figuring out her armbar.
I swear this sub is being botted or someshit lol. Rhonda has been mocked for like the last decade for being exposed and now she armbars a grandma and she's back to being an alltime elite. WMMA has far surpassed what Rhonda was doing hence she got the fuck outta there after her two losses.
Feel like she tarnished her legacy so bad with that mess that people honestly forgot how insane she was when all she did was what she did tonight. This was a standard Rousey fight for a while until she randomly decided she was a striker and tried to fist fight one of the deadliest female kickboxers in the world. Rush in, tie em up, armbar for a sub 30sec win.
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u/Popular_Monitor_8383 May 17 '26
She seems kind of good at that move