Ronda Rousey: Brute Force and the Face of Females in the MMA
By Barnaby Kellaway
Ronda Rousey has greater ambitions than just being the best women’s fighter in mixed martial arts. Her ultimate goal is to become the most dominant fighter in the world, man or woman.
At her UFC 184 pre fight scrum last week Rousey commented: “I’m trying to be as dominant as possible and maybe one day that asterisk will disappear”. The asterisk, her gender, may not last as long as she fears. Looking at the statistics “Rowdy” must be part of any conversation about most dominant champion in the UFC today.
In many areas she eclipses her competition.
Since becoming champion her average fight time is a brisk one minute and forty-seven seconds. Let’s compare this statistic to the UFC’s three other most dominant champions: Jon Jones, Jose Aldo and Demetrious Johnson. Their title defense average fight times come in at over nineteen, eighteen and sixteen minutes respectively.
Evidently Rousey disposes of her challengers a great deal quicker than her male competition does.
As well as this her four fight finishing streak in the UFC is joint top with fellow champ Anthony Pettis. Her streak could be considered more impressive than Pettis’ as all of hers occurred in title bouts. Not to mention that she’s odds on to make it five in a row this weekend against Cat Zingano.
The Olympic bronze medalist also made UFC history early last year when she made two title defenses in the space of just fifty six days, quicker than any champion before her had done. Unquestionably the women’s champion has thrashed her challengers with greater ease than any of the men and she is the most efficient fighter in the UFC.
Her performances over the last two years have made her coach, Edmund Tarverdyan, believe she has already achieved the title of most dominant fighter in the UFC: “The way she gets in there, everything shows it. Absolutely. Dominant the word is like, do you the finish fights? Has she finished everything? You ask yourself the question and there is the answer.”
However the one thing Jones and Aldo have over Rousey is their number of defenses. The four defenses of ‘Rowdy’ do not match up against the eight of ‘Bones’ and the seven of the Brazilian.
Realistically the women’s bantamweight division hasn’t been around long enough for the champion to have racked up any more defenses than Rousey has already. But it’s because of this she’s slightly behind the light heavyweight and the featherweight champs when it comes to dominance.
Having said this, if she can earn two or three more victories showing the same superiority she has in her first four then she’ll strip the crown from Jones and/or Aldo.
Rousey can take a big step towards accomplishing her ultimate goal this weekend at UFC 184.
