- Ronda Rousey confessed to losing control and focus after getting hit by Holly Holm early in the fight
- “Rowdy” claims her corner wasn’t really that much of a help to her
Ronda Rousey opened up about how she ultimately struggled to execute her game plan against Holly Holm at UFC 193.
Ronda felt it early on
In a recent Q&A while promoting her latest autobiography, “Our Fight,” Rousey didn’t shy away from remembering how she failed against “The Preacher’s Duaghter.” According to “Rowdy,” she came in prepared as she always did but one hit was all it took to get her completely out of her rhythm.
https://x.com/MixedMartialAus/status/1798719030309826821
“The Holm fight, I didn’t really get to start my process because I literally just got hit right away, and it knocked loose all my bottom teeth and I was out on my feet from the very beginning,” Rousey said. “So there wasn’t like that same kind of process of what I usually have.”
“My process was usually, I would plan out the first exchange, and everything from then on out would be an improvisation, within the range of what I trained for specifically for that person,” she continued.
“For Holm, what we trained a lot [was] doing lateral, side-to-side movement to herd her towards the cage,” Rousey explained. “When I was basically out on my feet, I couldn’t see distance. There’s no depth perception when you have a bad concussion. I was completely unable to carry that out and even think coherently. I wasn’t able to operate the way that I usually do.”
“I’m constantly trying to keep the person reacting to what I’m doing,” she added. “There’s no step back and reset and start again. I was constantly always trying to keep pressure on the person and keep them reacting to me at all times. That’s why you never saw me, ‘Let’s back up and do this again,’ or we’re going to back up again and come back. It was one long exchange. That was basically speed decision-making, this is what was happening.”
Ronda thought about repeating what she did to Tate
Rousey then cited her first fight with Miesha Tate in which she successfully won via her signature armbar. As “Rowdy” recalled, she was thinking about doing the same thing to Holm but to no avail.
“In the first Miesha fight, when I mounted her back and I was unloading with both hands, and I really wanted to do an armbar from there,” Rousey said, “So, I posted with one hand on the ground and started just hitting with one hand, knowing that she has bring this other hand up eventually to block these punches. Because all I wanted was that arm. I had to convince this person to give me that arm.”
Rousey’s corner wasn’t really helping
Another big revelation Rousey made was about her corner’s contributions to her performances. Unlike with other fighters, Rousey said she never really got much help from her coaches throughout her career.
“I don’t hear anything my corner’s saying,” Rousey said. “They’re yelling for them.”
“My mom specifically actually sent me to judo tournaments with no coach all the time. A lot of the times the person sitting in the chair didn’t know what they were talking about. I would literally be like, ‘Your job is tell me whether the person is right or left handed,’ and a lot of the times they were wrong about that,” she continued.
Prior to this, Rousey already claimed that a longtime concussion issue and wrong mouth guard played a key role in her loss to Holm. Shortly after that, Holm responded and insisted that she was the better fighter that night.
Rousey last fought in MMA in 2016 where she lost to Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. Since then, she transitioned to pro wrestling and is now one of the most celebrated WWE stars of her era.
Quotes via MMA Fighting.
