Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
Ronda is not a great striker and that was clearly exposed with Holm. That said, I think she is clearly capable of beating her in a rematch. Ronda in her last few fights seemed like she was out to prove a point. After people were talking about how she beats everyone with an arm bar she seemed to make it a point to win differently. If the girl she was facing was known for being a striker, Ronda seemed to want to beat her striking. If she is a grappler, Ronda wanted to beat her grappling. It wasn't enough for her to just win, she wanted to beat that girl at what she did best.
Up until Holm, Ronda had always just been better at those things than the girl she was facing. With Holm that wasn't the case. Her coach didn't help. After the first round he told her how great she was doing and encouraged her. He should have been screaming at her to take Holm to the ground and choke her out. I also think Ronda was distracted with all the press, travel and everything else surrounding her.
If there is a rematch and Ronda is serious, she can come up with a game plan to close the distance and take the fight to the ground where she will have a big advantage. That sense of invincibility and her need to prove her greatness is now gone. She no longer has to worry about trying to win fantastically, she can just focus on winning period.
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Rhonda was NEVER a decent striker and its been "exposed" every time she's tried to strike. Trust me. It's all I do... Box and Muay Thai. Her and Tate went 3 rounds, trading shots, completely unable to do any damage or slow the other down and frankly, it perfectly demonstrated how terrible their striking is. This fight also showed how little she's improved over a couple years. She's bad at it. She has bad coaching. She's a terrible striker. Not just in terms of form and technique and defense/countering but in their ability to generate any sort of power - which again is about proper mechanics, time, correction/feedback and endless repetition,... not muscle and anger. You can't generate and transfer kinetic energy to a target effectively simply because you have "the will to win" or a mean look on your face or "a new plan". You can't spontaneously correct all the problems she has with her striking (terrible footwork, head movement, chin up, hands down, poor technique over all, bad timing, poor countering, poor defense etc). It will take years and she still won't be anywhere near Holm in terms of skill, expertise and experience.
Rhonda was never better at "fighting" with her opponents. She was always infinitely better at grappling. Most of her opponents charged right at her or tried to grapple with her, usually with disastrous results. As Holm demonstrated, grappling is just one potential part of an MMA fight... and the fatal flaw in grappling in MMA if there could be said to be one is that ALL fights start with both opponents on their feet.
As I explained in quite a bit of detail, there is no possible way to improve her striking to any degree which will be useful against someone who is a world class striker any more than Holm will improve her grappling to match that of a world class grappler. However, a huge factor again is the fact that take down defense/scrambling/escaping is VERY EASY to drill over and over and over and over (i.e. line up 20 guys taking turns trying to take an individual down, going for maximum repetitions, correcting form each time etc). That again presents a problem as Holm will be harder to get to the ground and harder to keep on the ground.
A simple fact about the womens division is that for the most part, they still suck. There are some good women fighters but the honest fact is that the overall skill level is still fairly low. Experience levels are fairly low. Total training time is fairly small. Males have had forever to learn and evolve (just watch UFC 1 to see a bunch of hapless retards trying to "fight") and women are still at the beginning stages in MMA in terms of evolution and experience. Competition is uneven. Experience is poor. Someone like Holm has more striking experience, skill and expertise than any woman in MMA will likely have in the next decade. Just as is true for Rhonda and grappling. Holm and Rousey are the only two women really that have that level of skill and experience in a discipline and it won't be matched by anyone else, any time soon.
Again, my prediction is that there will be a rematch and Rousey will get picked apart again. Exactly like Dillashaw/Barrao and for the exact same neuro-physiological reasons. Besides, Edmond isn't that good. Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn are.
People really don't get what it feels like to be in front of someone, getting popped in the face and feeling like there is nothing you can do to stop it. Feeling like nothing you do is working. Feeling like you can't land anything. Everyone can be broken. Everyone can be broken fairly quickly. As one of the Gracies said... "punch a black belt and he instantly becomes a brown belt, punch him again, he's a purple belt, punch him again... he's blue" etc etc. This is the problem Rhonda has to overcome.