Holly Holm Defeats Ronda Rousey – Takeaways from UFC 193

The dust has settled after quite an eventful weekend for MMA, where we saw the crowning of a new Women’s Bantamweight Champ when Holly Holm dethroned the former champion Ronda Rousey, who had previously dominated the sport. Holm and her coaches Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn executed the perfect game plan to exploit Ronda’s weaknesses. They took advantage of her lack of footwork, kept her at bay, peppered her with combos and frustrated Ronda. To Ronda’s credit, she showed a solid chin and heart and kept pressing forward but eventually Holm landed a brutal head kick reminiscent of Mirko Cro Cop that put her out. Very few people expected Holly Holm to upset Ronda, including myself. However, that’s not to say I bought into the hype that Ronda was unbeatable; I defiantly thought Ronda had holes that could be exploited. In Holly Holm’s two previous fights under ZUFFA, the parent company of the UFC, she looked very lackluster and failed to impress me. She arguably lost to Raquel Pennington in her debut, and she did nothing to open my eyes in her fight against Marion Reneau, who is 38 and a PE teacher by day. In fact, when it was announced that Holm was fighting Rousey next, there was a lot of outrage within the MMA community, as Meisha Tate already defeated Jessica Eye to earn a 3rd chance at Ronda. Obviously, UFC felt that they could generate more money with Holm as the challenger. She was certainly the tougher challenge as she now has the belt.

In the midst of this upset, there are a lot of overreactions, hot takes, and overall stupid opinions all across social media. So as someone who’s been watching the sport for over 10 years and watched it grow into the global phenomenon it is today, I thought I would add in my 2 cents with opinions on the night.

1. This is not the biggest upset in UFC history.

Yes, this was a huge upset with the Vegas odds, but plenty of people were giving Holly Holm a chance in this fight. Given all her boxing/kickboxing credentials and accolades, at the very least the public was giving her a puncher’s chance. The title of biggest upset still belongs to Georges St. Pierre Vs. Matt Serra at UFC 69. The only reason Matt Serra was put in the position to fight for the title was because he won the Ultimate Fighter season 4 with past UFC fighters. I thought that was stupid to begin with, but at the time, the UFC was still growing into the mainstream and they needed this kind of stipulation to get people to watch the show. So after Matt Serra won a very boring and lackluster decision against Chris Lyle, he was given a title shot against Georges St. Pierre, who was coming off the biggest win of his career to that point, knocking out the best welterweight in the world at the time Matt Hughes in dominating fashion.

In a nutshell, Georges St. Pierre was in his mid 20’s and was about to enter his peak as an MMA fighter, and pretty much was expected to run thru everyone in the division. Matt Serra was in his mid 30’s, maybe had a few fights left before he was going to retire and teach jiu-jitsu full time at his gym. This was basically a showcase fight for St. Pierre, where he was expected to run thru Serra and go on to face tougher challenges in the division. On paper, GSP was better than Serra in every category… Striking, wrestling, hell even Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. While Serra has accomplished a lot in the BJJ world, GSP was bigger and stronger and was thought to be able to control Serra if the fight hits the ground. The only thing Serra had was power in his punches, and even then he never knocked out anyone before the GSP fight. And it wasn’t expected Matt Serra’s short reach was going to be able to get inside GSP’s jab, since GSP has a 76 inch reach to Matt Serra’s 68. But boy we were wrong. Matt Serra rocked GSP and finished him in the first round, shocking the world.

Afterwards, Matt Serra only fought 4 fights, going 1-3, including losing his title back to GSP, while that was the last blemish on GSP’s record. GSP would go on to have arguably the greatest MMA career of all time. So with that said, that still remains the biggest upset in UFC history. And it’s gonna be very hard to surpass that in my eyes.

2. Ronda Rousey needs to leave Edmond Tarverdyan and the Glendale Fighting Club.

Coming into the fight, there was a lot of criticism towards Ronda’s head trainer Edmond Tarverdyan. First, there were reports of him declaring bankruptcy, and then Ronda Rousey’s mother coming out to the media and airing out her displeasures of Edmond. In my opinion, all the criticism towards Edmond is well-deserved. I feel that he doesn’t make Ronda a better fighter in any way, shape, or form. Ronda got to where she was because of her talent and skill, in spite of Edmond’s deficiencies as a main trainer. Before Ronda got there, he was a nobody and cashed in big with his meal ticket (Ronda). At this point, he’s becoming a bigger distraction than what she needs right now. Ronda was able to get to the title and dominate the division on her pure skill alone, not because of any of Edmond’s teaching.

Ronda is a unique talent, but as shown on Saturday night, she still has a lot of weaknesses she needs to work on in her striking game. Edmond isn’t the trainer that’s going to help her with that. Nothing showed me more that Edmond’s a mediocre coach than was when he was on the Ultimate Fighter when Ronda and Tate were the head coaches, and Tate’s team outcoached Ronda’s team badly. It was then when I knew that Edmond was basically a yes-man and pretty much just there to make sure Ronda gets in workouts.

During the fight, Edmond told Ronda after the first round that she was “doing a good job”, when she was getting dominated, displaying little footwork and head movement. Just pressing forward, and even had Holly Holm take her down. Horrible display of coaching, and it basically showed the world that Edmond’s status is nothing more than a “Yes-Man”.

If Ronda wants to defeat Holly in the rematch, she must take her talents to the many MMA gyms out there throughout North America that will help clean up her striking and work on her angles among other things.

3. This is not a “Boxing vs. MMA” storyline.

One of the biggest hot takes last night was casual fans trying to make this out to be an MMA vs. boxing narrative, which makes zero sense.

Both Ronda and Holly come from two different backgrounds. Ronda comes from a judo background, Holly comes from a boxing background. Both started MMA in 2011. So in retrospect, this is basically a Judoka turned MMA fighter vs. boxer turned MMA fighter, not an MMA fighter vs. a Boxer as both have the same amount of experience training in MMA.

I know the simpletons and casual fans love pushing this moronic boxing vs. MMA debate when it doesn’t need to be pushed. This debate has been going on since the UFC started to become popular in 2005, and quite frankly is a tiresome argument. Why can’t you enjoy both sports instead of making it some lame competition? Floyd Mayweather is never going to fight in MMA, so save all your hypothetical scenarios that make no sense.

4. What the future holds for the Women’s Bantamweight division:

So with Holly knocking out Ronda, it poses a lot of questions for the division. Dana already said that Ronda has deserved an immediate rematch, but Ronda said after this fight she was going to take time off. Now does this loss change her mind and get her back in the gym immediately? Who knows. But I have a hunch that Dana might want to save this fight for his milestone UFC 200 this upcoming summer, where it will be bound to draw big time PPV buyrates.

I know Ronda has some movie projects she has to work on, but does she postpone those after this loss? And if she doesn’t, does Dana keep Holly on the shelf until July? Does Ronda want to take a tune up fight before fighting Holly? Does Miesha Tate get a crack at Holly before July? So many questions need to be answered.

In my opinion, I believe Ronda should switch training camps and take a tune up fight with the new camp before jumping into a title shot with Holly. And in the meantime, book Holly Holm vs. Meisha Tate or Amanda Nunes, whatever works. Would this maybe throw a monkey wrench in a possible Holm/Ronda rematch on the big stage? Sure, but this isn’t pro wrestling, where you can book real fights and expect it all to go to plan; this is the fight game. Tate or Nunes has done more than enough to deserve title shots and don’t deserve to sit on sidelines or fighting C-level talent while they wait for the dust to settle. Give one of them a shot and feed some tomato can to Ronda so she can get comfortable with her new training camp. There is still a lot of time from now till July, so hopefully Dana grows a pair and takes a risk.

In conclusion…

Last night’s event is why we watch this sport. An underdog rises to the occasion and dethrones the ruler, shocking the world and leaving many of us wondering what will happen in the future of this fairly new sport. A new champion. A hungry, once-dominant champion looking to reclaim what was once hers. Challengers waiting in the wings, hungry for their chance. The division should be interesting in the upcoming months, so keep up with the many MMA news outlets out there and stay tuned!

[Editor’s Note – Kevin: I will be the first person to tell you I know nothing about MMA, outside of Kimbo Slice, former pro wrestlers, and Butterbean. I don’t know what the future holds for Rousey in MMA; I’ll leave that to Ace. But as far as Rousey’s near future is concerned, my guess is that she ends up wrestling Stephanie McMahon at WrestleMania.]

Twitter: @BeigeHarleyRace

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