Last Saturday something occurred in the sports world more unbelievable than Mike Tyson losing to Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali losing to Joe Frasier, and much more exciting than the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight. Ronda Rousey, a mixed martial arts fighter who is undefeated in the MMA, lost to a second round knockout by Holly Holm who was 3-0 in the UFC prior.
Holm completely dominated the former Women’s Bantamweight Champion who seemed untouchable after being proclaimed as the most dominant fighter in the UFC, even including men. Rousey has never appeared distraught, exhausted or even hurt during a fight, but Holm made sure she witnessed a lot of firsts.
Holm landed almost twice as many strikes and recorded the only takedown of the fight. Rousey has never been taken down and when Holm brought her to the ground fans knew this would not be a typical Rousey first round arm-bar finish. When on the ground Rousey tried to apply her signature arm-bar, but the two women ended up getting back up and continued to box, which is Holm’s strong suit.
Finally, the fight ended with Holm landing a kick onto the neck of Rousey. Rousey immediately went down and Holm began to berate Rousey with punches to the face. After Holm was awarded the belt, Rousey was taken to the hospital for an undisclosed injury.
What makes this defeat so shocking is the “fact” that Ronda Rousey is the most dominant athlete in her own profession since Tiger Woods during his heyday as a professional golfer in the 2000s. Tiger Woods was the number one professional golfer for 264 weeks from August 1999 to September 2004 and 281 weeks from June 2005 to October 2010. This is by far the longest for any professional golfer, and it is comparable to Rousey’s undefeated UFC record where every one of her first twelve fights ended in submissions, nine of which were of arm-bar.
A statistic that stands out even more about the dominance of Rousey is that she has spent a total of 17 minutes 53 seconds in the UFC octagon before stepping in with Holm. To put that in perspective a fight can last a total of 15 minutes, or 25 minutes if it is a championship bout. In Rousey’s weight class a study done by MMA Latest in July shows that 47% of fights end in finishes, thus proving that Rousey knocking out or submitting each of her twelve opponents in the UFC before Holm is nothing short of pure supremacy.
Oh, and did I mention all those fights ended in the first round?
Holm accomplished a feat nobody saw coming, especially since she has only fought in the UFC three times before facing Rousey with only boxing experience beforehand. Now Holm has become the first person to have a World Boxing title and a UFC title even with being un-favored 14-1 and being six years older than Rousey.
Rousey is a marketing treasure for Dana White, the president of UFC, and with this loss nobody can predict what is next for the model, movie star, and now not even an undefeated mixed martial artist. But all I can predict is that a rematch seems to be upon us and one thing is for certain: no fighter will ever popularize and heighten the fan base of the UFC like Ronda Rousey has done with feminine originality and overall authority.
