UFC 207: Nunes vs Rousey

[wandshogun09]

You didn't miss much really Keith. Wasn't much of a show really until Cruz vs Garbrandt which was incredible. Rousey vs Nunes was basically just Rousey vs Holm on fast forward.

[Fox Piss]

Cody v TJ needs to happen next. 

Obviously their Alpha Male history sells to a extent and it has the potential to turn nasty pretty sharpish but style wise it does alot for me. 

[Really Big Shoe]

PVZ is very marketable, however she doesn't really have the killer instinct (as of yet) to make her a champion. Maybe over time she'll improve and have champion credentials, but right now she's somebody who could draw in a mainstream audience thanks to her appearances on DWTS. She also will likely turn up in movies, more TV appearances. In fact she's the perfect ambassador for UFC and could be a good role model if they go down that route. In complete contrast, Ronda is the anti thesis to Paige Van Zant, she's a classic heel you love to hate but have to respect because they've got the skills to back it up. Some people dislike/even hate her but I respect the intensity she had and when was tearing it up I thought good for her. Sadly I think she has some deeply routed personal issues and demons she needs to exorcise. One fighter I forget whom made some sick comments about her dad who committed suicide and Ronda rightly shut her up and made them eat their words. To see her fall from grace isn't nice to see. I think they should have put her against Holly first and went from there. Putting her against Amanda Nunez as her first fight back is a step too far which is why she failed. Cruz said ring rust is all in the mind, but as MMA is ever evolving you can't really have a long lay off and expect to be at the top of your game.

 

If Ronda does come back and it's a massive if, she needs to go back to basics, win some fights then go for a title fight. Big marquee fights will do more harm than good in the long run. Although from her and Danas POV Rousey vs lower level fighter would do less business than Rousey v Holm II or Nunes v Rousey II. Where she goes next will be interesting.

[wandshogun09]

Cruz said ring rust is all in the mind, but as MMA is ever evolving you can't really have a long lay off and expect to be at the top of your game.

Cruz's opinions on ring rust are interesting. He's been the most vocal in saying that it's a myth and he knows a thing or two about coming back from long layoffs. But everyone's different. Dominick Cruz having a year layoff is going to be different to someone else having a year layoff. Cruz is very intelligent. One of the smartest to ever do MMA. When he had his layoffs you just know he made the most of it and maximised his opportunities to improve in any way he could. He said himself before that he stayed in shape by riding his bike all the time and he stayed mentally sharp because he was still doing all the analyst stuff for FOX. He wasn't fighting but he was never away from MMA. Compare that to Ronda's year out. I don't know if she stepped into a gym in 6 months. She seemed to completely lock MMA off and she stubbornly stuck with Clueless Ed as coach. She looked in phenomenal physical shape but that tells us nothing about her actual camp. Other than she can get in shape. I could get in great shape if I knocked the MAOAMs and Haribos on the head and started jogging again. But I'd be straight murdered if I stepped in with Amanda Nunes.

[Keith Houchen]

You didn't miss much really Keith. Wasn't much of a show really until Cruz vs Garbrandt which was incredible. Rousey vs Nunes was basically just Rousey vs Holm on fast forward.

Cheers. Will check that out, watched the main event on YouTube when I had a spare minute.

[icke83]

Just thinking out loud but I know Cruz is generally regarded as having a great mind for MMA but at his post fight press conference he mentioned some minor tweaks he could/should have implemented to mitigate some of the advantages that Cody had in the fight. If it had ended quickly you could understand him not doing them but seems odd that he didn't do what he knew he should have during the course of 25 minutes given he is one of the smarter fighters? 

[ColinBollocks]

He made mention of reach being an issue during it (and it was). Not sure how easy it is to adjust if you're having trouble timing things. I imagine he fancies he can dedicate a camp so he isn't continually overreaching, maybe?

[icke83]

Possibly, I like how Cody seems to think he calls the shots re matchmaking as opposed to the UFC but hopefully they go with the Cruz rematch (which Cruz didn't seem to be clamouring for as much as Cody but was probably just being respectful). 

Re Ronda's legacy, do you think it is fair to say there is a distinction between being a pioneer and actually being a legend as far as in ring/cage stuff goes? She certainly seemed to excel against competition in a thin division which has since caught up and the results have been plain to see. So while she is/was certainly a pioneer she wasn't that great an MMA fighter was she really? Obviously this may be down to a number of things;  misguided sense of loyalty to Edmund/surrounding herself with yes men/unable or unwilling to broaden her arsenal but ultimately she is responsible so whichever way you slice it, her legacy purely as a fighter isn't anything special? As a pioneer of course that can't be disputed, but it seems being a pioneer/an actual fighting legend can sometimes be blurred? Or rather are pioneers sometimes held in a regard which makes it more difficult to observe their actual fighting accomplishments objectively? I wasn't really watching MMA back in the days of Royce/Coleman so someone who was might be able to say if there may be parallels there too? 

[ColinBollocks]

Nah, Rousey was special for a time - the way she won was devastating. Every fighter has a prime and a peak, some can go for 10 years like an Aldo, while some only get a year or two out of it. I'm not a fan of completely writing off previous domination because of a couple of bad losses. Pettis and Hendricks can't seem to buy a win and RDA is currently 0-2, for example. All three of those men were looking like they were going to dominate for lengthy spells and were special for a while, but have fallen off quite a bit. That doesn't mean, at one time, they weren't the best fighters in their division.

 

The game catches up to everyone eventually, even a GOAT-type like Silva.

[icke83]

Do you think given that women's MMA is behind men's MMA in terms of evolution the opponents Rousey beat are comparable to those of the guys you mentioned? I know Cyborg has being accused of having a padded record by beating up 'soccer moms' and I don't really know enough about her opponents to compare them to the ones Rousey beat (some of whom I know had some degree of pedigree is a particular discipline but which doesn't necessarily mean they were prized scalps in an MMA setting) but I dunno, I just don't feel like the people Rousey beat warrant any label of greatness as a fighter, (but to paraphrase Rob Butcher from Powerslam one time, my opinion and a pound will get you a coffee), though of course her overall influence on WMMA can't be disputed.

I guess another factor may be that a pioneer such as Rousey/Gracie have a particular weapon/style that is new and so takes people a little while to adapt to but once their opponents do it rarely ends well which suggests they have a degree of complacency/reliance on said style/weapon which again should possibly call in to question their greatness as a fighter as an aspect of that surely is evolution and meeting/adapting to new challenges over time as and when they arise?

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

When it comes to Rousey's competition, I think people tend to dismiss them because of the way Ronda steamrolled them. Miesha Tate was obviously credible being a former Strikeforce champ, reasonably well-rounded to where her striking eventually came close to her great wrestling game. Then you have Cat Zingano, who has been in some absolute wars (with Tate and Nunes of all people), showed a complete game and finished Tate. Rousey made her look like an amateur. Alexis Davis is a BJJ black belt and Canadian Open grappling champion. Sara McMann was a freaking Olympic silver medalist!

 

People tend to gloss over all that stuff and act like Holly Holm was the first accomplished fighter Ronda had faced. Absolutely, she was the best striker, but Ronda wasn't fighting cans- okay, you could maybe make a case for Bethe Correia.

 

As for Amanda Nunes, I predicted a 1st round KO/TKO win. The winning bet almost covered the cost of the PPV. I never expected Rousey to have zero offense, or defence. You'd think she'd never been in a fight before the way she just stood there taking punches. Total punching bag. You can say, "oh she hasn't worked on striking at all, she hasn't improved one bit", but I think it's almost more of a mental thing. The first good shot Nunes cracked Rousey with probably gave her Vietnam War-style flashbacks to the Holm fight.

 

She had a great career, but she's definitely done. UFC paid her truckloads of cash, only for her to go out there and have that happen. And she wasn't just caught, ala' Jose Aldo by Conor, or Cub Swanson by Aldo. She was caught, and caught again, and caught again, and caught again, and caught again...

[wandshogun09]

Shane O's nailed it. It's easy to look back now and say she was beating jobbers. And that's because she made them look like jobbers. But Bethe Correia was the only one who was a bit suspect. And even she was undefeated going in. Cat Zingano stopped both Nunes and Tate in awesome fights - and Ronda tapped her in 14 seconds in one of most incredible grappling sequences into a sub I've ever seen in MMA.

 

Ronda Rousey was fantastic. She was exciting to watch, never in a boring fight win or lose. The build up (when she participated) was usually fun and she brought an incredible atmosphere to her fights that only the huge stars can do. It's sad that it's ended the way it has with her just looking like she doesn't belong in there. But everything comes to an end.

 

I don't even think it's a case of the rest of the women 'catching up to her' or 'figuring her out' or whatever. Sure, that might play a part in the overall situation. The fighters in that division had to step to their game to compete with her. But like Shane said, I think more than anything it's a mental thing. She lost the fight to Holm because Holm had a brilliant gameplan and approached it unlike any other Rousey opponent ever did. You look at Rousey's fights pre-Holm and you'll see every single opponent go after Ronda aggressively which played right into her hands. The first one to play the matador was Holm. I think if Rousey would've lost a close competitive decision that night to Holm, this whole thing changes. I still would've given Nunes a great shot at beating her but I don't think Ronda would've looked as lost and out of her depth in there. I think Holm knocking Ronda out the way she did changed Ronda's mentality and the rest of the division's mentality. Her confidence was gone and the aura she had has this unbeatable machine was smashed. Couple that with her sitting out for a year and no doubt dwelling on the loss and driving herself mad (which lets be honest, isn't a long drive anyway), plus coming back to fight Nunes straight away, it was a recipe for what we saw - a total mugging.

[the_mole]

I think more of the women are joining big camps, they get top trainers and fellow female contenders to train with.

 

If Ronda wants to continue doing this, there is a lot of top camps in California, I have no idea where she lives in California but Bec Rawlings flies in from Australia to Dominick Cruz's camp Alliance even though she's not even ranked, Joanna is training in Florida now and she's a champion flying in from Poland, so finding a top camp in Cali wouldn't be hard, would help her boyfriend Travis Browne too

 

If she can work on her wrestling (she can't always just Judo throw) and her kick boxing, with her natural athleticism she could get to the top again, especially now the division is getting thinner due to the 145lb class opening.

[jimufctna24]

People forget what that division looked like just over a year ago. They were running out of opponents for Rousey. She had more or less beaten everyone, and convincingly. The had a graphic of the rankings on one of the UFC PPV's, and the commentators alluded to this. Going into to 2016, Tate had gone unbeaten against everyone other than Ronda and Zingano, the latter of which Tate was handily winning before being stopped in the 3rd round. 

 

Nunes was flying under the radar due to a loss to Zingano. Even Holm wasn't consider much of a threat due to her appearing underwhelming in his first few UFC fights. She got the fight against Ronda mainly based on her being one of the few who hadn't been steamrolled by Rousey previously. The last 14 months ago has completely gone against script. Whether that's due to poor management of Rousey's team, or Nunes evolving into the a better fighter is open to debate. Personally, I think it's a bit of both. On paper, the 2016 version of Nunes would be a tough match for any version of Rousey. 

 

There was a slight difference with the Coleman/Royce comparison that I introduced. By 1996, most knew that Royce would be made into mincemeat by Coleman, despite them never fighting. Dan Severn and Ken Shamrock introduced the blueprint of how to beat Royce, so it's not like this notion came out of nowhere. With Rousey, the loss to Holm did come out of nowhere. There wasn't a feeling of change in the air before that night in Australia. It almost happened over night, as Ronda was dominating the division beforehand, and there were few signs that things were going to change. 

[wandshogun09]

Ronda's released a statement to ESPN;

 

"I want to say thank you to all of my fans who have been there for me in not only the greatest moments but in the most difficult ones. Words cannot convey how much your love and support means to me."

 

"Returning to not just fighting, but winning, was my entire focus this past year. However, sometimes -- even when you prepare and give everything you have and want something so badly -- it doesn't work how you planned. I take pride in seeing how far the women's division has come in the UFC and commend all the other women who have been part of making this possible, including Amanda."

 

"I need to take some time to reflect and think about the future. Thank you for believing in me and understanding."