UFC’s Ronda Rousey: More Necks To Ring, Now


UFC bantamweight Ronda Rousey could take a little time off. If she wanted to.

Though Rousey (now 9-0 in MMA and 3-0 in UFC) just handily beat down standout opponent Miesha Tate in December for UFC 168 and has movie obligations stretching her schedule thin this year, UFC President Dana White just confirmed that Rousey recently called and demanded a slot in UFC 175 on July 5, when she’ll face No. 2-ranked Alexis Davis, who’s 16-5 in MMA and also 3-0 in the UFC.

It was originally understood that Rousey would fight at the end of summer, since other obligations were keeping her busy, but White told MMAJunkie: “Ronda called me and said, ‘I want to fight. She wants to stay busy, she wants to keep fighting. If you tell her she can’t fight, she’ll tell you, ‘F**k you. I want to fight.'”

This led White to compare Rousey, one of the UFC’s current darlings, to one of White’s favorite male fighters, one of the UFC’s greatest of all time:

“Ronda is my new Chuck Liddell. Seriously. She’s my new Chuck Liddell. She will fight anybody, anywhere, anytime…. She wants to fight so she’ll fight back-to-back. She’ll fight on 24-hour’s notice.”

Many have pushed the idea that Ronda Rousey could authoritatively beat any woman in any weight class in the current crop of UFC fighters, but could she really take on anyone?

That’s what iconic UFC commentator Joe Rogan just told Sports Nation commentators, that Rousey could convincingly beat even Floyd Mayweather Jr., the same-sized boxer and five-division boxing champ, if conditions were right. But how?

“It’s all about how much time Floyd has to prepare, because he will really have to work on his take-down defense. That would be the big thing. If Ronda got a clinch on him, it’s not just about worrying about being taken down to the ground, it’s worrying about knees to the body. It is worrying about her manipulating his body in ways that he doesn’t understand….

“It’s too hard to avoid the clinch. If you watch a Floyd Mayweather fight, they very rarely end in a one-punch knockout. He has brittle hands. His hands break. You are talking about small gloves where hands are going to break even easier. She keeps her chin tucked, hands high and gets a hold of you. There is going to be a lot of things she is doing that he doesn’t understand.”

The whole thing about Rousey beating Mayweather in the octagon, which 54.48 percent of voters in a Los Angeles Times poll thought would happen, came from Rousey herself, who’s apparently thought this whole thing through:

“I wouldn’t even stand up, I wouldn’t even be anywhere near him. I would just do like a little army crawl over there, and he would have to run away. I would just be skittering after him like the one dude in Bloodsport that was doing the whole monkey crawl fight system. I would do that. I would just bear crawl over there too low for him to hit me, and I’d tackle him down…. I spent a lot of time [on the ground], and I doubt that he does.”

According to Rousey’s UFC fighter profile, 78 percent of her success has come from submission holds.

[Image courtesy of UFC]

Share this article: UFC’s Ronda Rousey: More Necks To Ring, Now
More from Inquisitr