By Lance LeVan
In August 2014, I wrote an article about Ronda Rousey. I felt it was a fairly objective article about how people had started referring to her as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time). Ronda “Rowdy” Rousey is the current (and so far, the only) Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s bantamweight (135 pounds) champion.
For those of you out there who do not know her resume, here it is:
• She is a very highly-decorated Olympic-caliber Judoka.
• She has had 15 Mixed Martial Arts fights, 12 of them have been professional bouts.
• She has been fighting in MMA for five years and is 15-0 (12-0 professionally).
• In every single fight she has been in, she has finished the fight.
• Of her 15 wins, 12 have been by her signature move, the armbar.
• The other three victories were TKO/KOs.
• All but one of her 15 bouts have been finished in the first round.
She has finished 100 percent of her opponents. She has won 100 percent of her fights. These are not my opinions or things that other sports writers have embellished. These are facts, and they are undisputed. She is on a completely different level than her current “peers.” You can’t really call them her peers, because they are NOT. In her short tenure, she has burned through the gambit of opponents in her weight class and barely broke a sweat.
Now, she’s getting ready to have to fight Holly Holm on November 14. Holm is a former boxer and kickboxer as a welterweight. Though this match will be a bantamweight bout. Holm will definitely bring a different approach to the Octagon but in my opinion, the result will be the same. Rousey is just that good and really needs a fighter who will challenge her.
With that being said, there are rumors and speculation that Rousey and Cris “Cyborg” Justino could fight sometime in the near future. There are so many rumors and articles about this, I have no idea what to believe and what not to believe. I hear rumors that Cyborg wants to fight at a catch-weight. I hear other rumors Ronda doesn’t want to fight her. I hear rumors that Cyborg is still juicing (using anabolic steroids) to enhance her performance.
Let me give my .02 cents worth on these rumors, and remember that these are MY opinions:
1. Ronda should not fight a catch-weight fight. She is the champion. If you want to fight her, cut weight and make it to 135 pounds. In Cyborg’s last fight, she cut down to 144.6 pounds. Another nine pounds is quite a bit of weight.
2. I can’t speak for Ronda, but I do not believe that she is scared of ANY woman in MMA. I do believe that IF Cyborg can make it to 135 pounds; it will be a sincere test of Ronda’s ability. Cyborg is a serious threat.
3. I believe that all fighters should be tested for PEDs before and after every fight, ESPECIALLY if you have already been busted taking steroids.
In my last article, I said that I thought Ronda was the greatest female fighter of all time. But I did not think that she was the pound-for-pound GOAT. I am slowly changing my mind. I am thinking of a number. If she gets to this number (of wins), then I am going to publicly retract my statement and start referring to her as the GOAT.
She has fought twice since my last article and both of those fights lasted a total of 48 seconds. LESS THAN ONE MINUTE! FOR TWO FIGHTS! It’s like watching vintage Mike Tyson fights. You KNEW he was going to KO his opponent, but you bought the PPV and watched his fights because you wanted to see how incredible he was. It is the same thing with Ms. Rousey. Every time that she fights, I purchase the PPV and I tune in to see how insanely dominant she is in the Octagon.
