Tate vs. Rousey Recap

son solo contento che finalmente si vede una judoka ,che a terra spacca il culo ai passeri , dimostrando che il judo studiato bene anche a terra nelle basi è efficacissimo e praticamente identico al bjj(che deriva dal judo).

son solo contento che finalmente si vede una judoka ,che a terra spacca il culo ai passeri , dimostrando che il judo studiato bene anche a terra nelle basi è efficacissimo e praticamente identico al bjj(che deriva dal judo).

First and foremost I would like to provide a huge amount of respect, adoration and applause to Miesha Tate. I’ve met Miesha before when I was fighting for Strikeforce and we’ve even communicated on Twitter a couple of times and I’ve always found her to be nice, respectful and worthy of being called “Champ”.

She’s an amazing individual and competitor. She simply lost on Saturday and as Matt Hughes said a couple of years ago, “If you keep competing, sooner or later, you will get beat.”

Miesha had her time, she’ll hopefully have her time again, but right now it is Ronda Rousey‘s time.

Although it is difficult for me to do, my job as a sports writer is to critique Ronda’s fight. I know Ronda personally so I have to be super careful during my critique to only critique the fight and nothing else because there’s so much more that I know from being able to speak with her mother, coaches, manager, etc.

So, I have crafted my words very carefully here, but am also writing as a sports writer, not as Ronda’s friend, which is extremely difficult because I love her and respect her so much.

But here it is…

Post-fight analysis of “Rousey vs. Tate”

With an extensive Judo and grappling background I definitely gave Ronda the edge over Tate in this fight. My initial comments on this fight were that Ronda Rousey would “steam roll” over Tate. Many disagreed, but so many individuals are not aware of the major difference between Mixed Martial Arts and high level specialty sports (i.e. Boxing, Judo, BJJ, Wrestling, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, etc.).

There was a time on the men’s side of the sport where you could be one-dimensional and win (i.e. Royce Gracie with BJJ and Coleman and Randleman with ground-and-pound), but now such is not the case.

However, the women’s side of the sport is still growing. It has not had the introduction of the Olympians and world class athletes in as great a number as the men’s side to increase the level. Olympic Medalists like Ronda Rousey and Sara McMann and many other elite athletes who are still young enough to compete in their sport but have chosen to do MMA are entering the sport now on the women’s side and raising the level.

Case in point, just by being in the pool of 135-pounders, Ronda is causing her rivals to think of ways to beat her. This increases the game because now they are dealing with an element of expertise which they have not seen or had to deal with. This is good for the growth of the sport.

Now, onto the fight.

It was certainly no secret what Ronda’s gameplan was. The question was, is and will be… who will be able to stop her and for how long will they be able to hold her off. In the course of a 25 minute match I don’t think that there is any 135-pounder alive that is currently doing MMA that will stop Ronda from armbarring them in the course of 25 minutes.

Now with that being said, everyday that goes by, Ronda’s opponents are improving and figuring out a way to beat her and she’s figuring out a way to capitalize off of her stardom, fame and continuing, quite honestly, to learn MMA.

Tate’s job, ultimately, was tougher than Ronda’s. That’s just a fact. When you are the champ, you have to do more PR work, more interviews, more speaking engagements, more charity work, more of everything… and you have to train and prepare for the best.

The problem is, by definition, you are the best, so it’s very difficult to “get up” and “enthused” for the person trying to take your title. This is where Tate was mentally. In her mind she actually believed that Ronda did not “earn” the opportunity and she bought into the MMA hype like most of you who are reading this article have.

MMA is hard… it most certainly is, but it is much harder to win an Olympic Gold Medal (or medal in general at the games) in Greco or Freestyle Wrestling or Judo than it is to win any MMA title. And that’s a statistics discussion not a “who is tougher” or “which one is harder” discussion. Just trust me… I’m a doctor. LOL.

To continue, Miesha just believed that her time in MMA would provide an element or issue that Ronda had not seen before. What she didn’t understand is that Ronda has fought more times over than Miesha could hope to.

This is Ronda’s competition record in high level sport:

——- Date / Result / Event / Comp. / Category ——-

    01-May-2010 1 US National Championships Myrtle Beach NC U70
    13-Aug-2008 3 Olympic Games Beijing OG U70
    13-Jun-2008 1 US Olympic Trials NT U70
    08-May-2008 5 Pan American Championships Miami PanCH U70
    11-Apr-2008 1 US National Championships Virginia Beach NC U70
    17-Feb-2008 1 World Cup Budapest WCup U70
    03-Feb-2008 3 Belgian Ladies Open Arlon IT U70
    08-Dec-2007 2 Jigoro Kano Cup Tokyo IT U70
    10-Nov-2007 1 Finnish Open Vantaa IT U70
    30-Oct-2007 1 Rendez-Vous Canada Montreal IT U70
    19-Oct-2007 1 US Open Duluth IT U70
    14-Sep-2007 2 World Championships Rio de Janeiro WCh U70
    12-Aug-2007 3 German Open Braunschweig IT U70
    20-Jul-2007 1 Pan American Games Rio de Janeiro Panam U70
    25-May-2007 3 Pan American Championships Montreal PanCH U70
    21-Apr-2007 1 US National Championships Miami NC U70
    18-Feb-2007 1 World Cup Vienna WCup U70
    27-Jan-2007 1 British Open London IT U63
    12-Nov-2006 3 Finnish Open Vantaa IT U63
    05-Nov-2006 1 Swedish Open Borås IT U63
    20-Oct-2006 1 US Open Miami IT U63
    13-Oct-2006 3 World Junior Championships U20 Santo Domingo WJC U63
    22-Sep-2006 1 Rendez-Vous Canada Montreal IT U63
    02-Sep-2006 1 USA Fall Classic Harlingen IT U63
    30-Jul-2006 1 Junior US Open Fort Lauderdale U20 IT20 U63
    25-May-2006 2 Pan American Championships Buenos Aires PanCH U63
    22-Apr-2006 1 US National Championships Houston NC U63
    01-Apr-2006 1 World Cup Birmingham WCup U63
    05-Feb-2006 1 Belgian Ladies Open Arlon IT U63
    27-Nov-2005 1 Ontario Open Toronto IT U63
    01-Oct-2005 1 US Open Fort Lauderdale IT U63
    25-Sep-2005 1 Rendez-Vous Canada Montreal IT U63
    07-Aug-2005 2 Junior US Open Fort Lauderdale U20 IT20 U63
    21-May-2005 1 Pan American Championships Caguas (PUR) PanCH U63
    22-Apr-2005 1 US National Championships Virginia Beach NC U63
    13-Feb-2005 5 World Cup Leonding WCup U63
    28-Nov-2004 1 Ontario Open Toronto IT U63
    27-Nov-2004 1 Ontario Open Toronto U20 IT20 U63
    16-Oct-2004 1 World Junior Championships U20 Budapest WJC U63
    26-Sep-2004 3 US Open Las Vegas IT U63
    18-Sep-2004 3 Rendez-Vous Canada Montreal IT U63
    05-Jun-2004 1 US Olympic Trials NT U63
    30-Apr-2004 1 US National Championships San Diego NC U63
    24-Apr-2004 1 Pan American Championships Isla Margarita PanCH U63
    19-Oct-2003 1 Rendez-Vous Canada Montreal IT U63
    11-Oct-2003 2 US Open Las Vegas IT U63
    31-Aug-2003 1 USA Fall Classic Indianapolis IT U63
    04-Aug-2002 1 Junior US Open Boca Raton U20 IT20 U57
    21-Aug-2001 1 Coupe Canada Cup IT U57

And that’s not including the training camps, local area matches and trips to Europe or Japan.

Miesha also isn’t aware that Ronda has had extensive media training from having been to two Olympic Games.  She is a lot more media savvy than Miesha was aware of and she understands how to prepare for high level competition.

Please trust me when I tell you that walking out to the cage is not as stressful as walking on to the mat at the Olympics. It’s different. It’s not easy. But it’s not as stressful.

Ronda has a system of what to do after weigh-ins, before the fight, after the fight and everything in between and she’s practiced it more than Tate and has done it more than Tate and when the fight began on Saturday, I was well aware of this, as was Miesha.

When the fight began, Ronda came in to close the distance. Much to my surprise, instead of Miesha back pedaling and trying to take the fight into deeper waters, she chose to engage. She threw some nice shots and then clinched, was taken down, escaped a submission, took Ronda’s back, stood back up, clinched again, was taken down and then got submitted.

Now here is where the problem lies…

If Kyra Gracie, Penny Thomas, Nyjah Easton, Leticia Ribiero take Ronda Rousey’s back, the outcome of that match may be slightly different. Maybe not, but as someone who is doing a post-fight analysis I have to mention that Tate did not implement a series or iterations of moves to choke Ronda nor did she make an attempt to transfer to an armbar.

This could be a problem for Ronda in the future as her Judo background has put her in the position of being the aggressor and she has very rarely had someone attacking her with reckless abandon in a competition setting. But once again, who can actually put Ronda in a bad position and keep her there? At this time — no one.

The bottom line with this fight is this. Miesha was outclassed. Ronda made several mistakes such as keeping her chin high, getting her back taken and keeping her face too close to Miesha’s legs and being at risk for getting hit with an up-kick when Miesha was on the ground. But, the question still stands, who can actually capitalize off of Rousey’s mistakes? At this time — no one.

Sarah Kaufman, her possible new opponent, has one chance and one chance only. And that chance is a puncher’s chance. Unfortunately, most women MMA fighters don’t pack enough power to KO another woman out cold with a “one hitta-quitta”.

I mean, Sarah Kaufman absolutely peppered the hell out of Alexis Davis‘ face to the point where both of Alexis’ eyes where closed, but she didn’t wobble her and didn’t put her out.

Best case scenario is that she can beat Ronda up like this and… at the end of the day, she will still get submitted.

I’m not sure that any woman in the division can learn takedown defense, excuse me, judo takedown defense, which is very different from wrestling, in enough time to stop Ronda.

There is one coach out there that knows how to stop judo throws and has actually coached someone against Karo Parisyan and that athlete did not get thrown. Thiago Alves never got thrown by Karo, but it was five weeks of steadfast work and position work to stop all of Karo’s moves.

Thiago’s coach that instructed him for that fight was one bad dude and very intelligent on how to stop Karo’s hips. His judo coach for that fight… yours truly, Dr. Rhadi Ferguson.

And I’m telling you right now that if you haven’t done judo or have a deep judo background and understand the clinch game, you will not be able to stop Ronda’s takedowns. You are going to have to hope that you are better than she is on the ground. And Tate was not and neither is Kaufman.

What is Next?

I’m really not sure who can hang with Ronda, but one woman does come to mind…

Kyra Gracie!

Now understand this, there are very few fights that make sense for Ronda. I can see her fighting Kaufman, Tate once again, Carano for a good payday and Kyra Gracie for the “grappling” fight of the century (but they can actually do a grappling match and make damn near the same amount of money without getting punched in the face and then fight an MMA match for a secondary payday) and Sara McMann.

Fighting Cyborg just doesn’t make sense. If I’m Ronda and her team, I take a little bit more time before lining up against Marloes Coenen too, but understand this, that fight will be her toughest test without a doubt. And that is the fight that I would take before fighting Cris Cyborg if fighting Cyborg was in the cards.

Cris Cyborg vs. Marloes Coenen

With all that being said, I am still a huge Miesha Tate fan. And I am a huge Ronda Rousey fan and just love her to pieces and glad that she’s getting her 10 minutes of fame. But, she knows as we all do, that the clock is ticking.

Tick… tick… tick…

When it’s all said and done though, if Ronda is fighting, I’m putting my money on Ronda! Period!