While there was a point that former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey looked nearly invincible inside the Octagon, ‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey is now on a 2-fight skid that has seen her drop back to back lopsided losses.
After losing her UFC women’s bantamweight championship to Holly Holm at UFC 193 back in November of 2015, Rousey took over a year away from the Octagon before returning at the end of 2016 to fight Amanda Nunes for the women’s bantamweight championship. Unfortunately for Rousey, it took just 48 seconds for Nunes to pick up a devastating TKO win and retain the belt.
Following the loss to Nunes, there has been much talk as to what’s next for Rousey. While some want the former champ to retire, others believe that with the proper changes to her training camp she can make a successful return.
MMA legend Bas Rutten weighed-in on Submission Radio:
“For her in training camp, I think she was doing everything right,” said Rutten. “I truly believe that. Because you heard her coach, Edmond saying, ‘Use head movement, head movement,’ so they worked on head movement. It’s just – and I always tell this to people and I probably told you guys many times as well – when everything works in a nice environment like in the gym without the pressure, yeah you can do a lot of stuff. But once the pressure is on, a lot of these things disappear.
when she got hit the first time, that threw her right back into the Holm fight. And even before that, the way she came out, there was no head movement, there was no nothing. Everything was the same as it was before. It was almost like she just locked up. And that’s what I wrote also in that blog, she’s gotta get rid of that whole angry look face thing. It’s too much. It’s almost like you’re trying to convince yourself that you gotta be angry or something, but what it really does for you, it locks you up, it locks the body up. Anger, you cannot use anger, man. Controlled anger you can, but you want to stay away from the anger because it locks the fluidity up, you don’t see punches coming. All the stuff I’m saying right now is exactly what you saw, and I truly believe it’s because the mindset is too aggressive.
“Aggressiveness – as I always say, calmness beats aggressiveness nine out of ten times. I truly believe that. The person who’s calm and calculated, he can figure things out. Just like she was in Judo, she needs to find that”
