Ronda Rousey: Is There Any Female MMA Fighter on the Horizon Who Can Beat Her?

By Barnaby Kellaway

It looks like finally an American UFC champion might have the courage to defend their title in Brazil. Speaking on the Jay Mohr Sports Radio Show Ronda Rousey was forthright when commenting on contender Bethe Correia: ‘I want to go and fight her in Brazil and beat her in her hometown’.

In defeating two of Rousey’s friends, Jessamyn Duke and Shayna Baszler, and taunting her afterwards the Brazilian might have done enough to bait Rousey. There isn’t much chance, even with home advantage, of Correia claiming the women’s bantamweight championship but the prospect of an an American champion fighting for their belt in Brazil is an exciting one; it doesn’t often happen.

After becoming UFC champion the career path for an American and a Brazilian fighter differs greatly. Americans enjoy the privilege of defending their titles on home soil meanwhile the vast majority of Brazilians fight away from home in North America, usually in front of a home crowd for the challenger.

The major reason for this is of course that the UFC is an American organisation therefore a majority of their events take place in North America. There were only seven events in Brazil last year with one title fight, Aldo’s successful title defence versus Mendes. This number seems a little low when you consider the number of highly ranked Brazilians competing.

What’s baffling is why more American champions don’t do what Rousey has declared intention to do and take the opportunity to venture in to murky waters, truly challenge themselves and defend their belt against Brazilian challengers in Brazil. It’s this kind of brave undertaking that separates the legends from the champions.

They do have the opportunities. Half of Jon Jones’ eight title defences have come against Brazilians but each time the bouts have been in North America. Similarly since first becoming champ Cain Velasquez has faced a Brazilian five times and once again each fight has taken place in North America.

Both of these American champs have dreams of being the greatest of all time, however they’ve not even left their own back garden. To truly realise their greatness they must stare down the barrel of the gun, feel the intimidation of a foreign crowd screaming for their Brazilian compatriot and still win. A victory in these conditions would be far more impressive than another one in front of a home crowd in Vegas.

Meanwhile, the Brazilians are doing just this time after time. Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo and Renan Barao have between them made twenty five title defences. Out of those twenty five twenty of them have taken place outside of Brazil. At the same time after tallying up the defences of Jon Jones, Cain Velasquez, Chris Weidman, Georges St Pierre and Dominick Cruz you’ll find that every single title defense occurred in North America.

Bluntly, the American champions have a far easier time of it than the Brazilians.

It’s unsurprising that seemingly the fighter with the spirit to venture in to Brazil with the belt strapped firmly round her waist is Ronda Rousey, hopefully this year we get to see her show the male champions how it’s done.