1RYHPEHU:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU1HZVOHWWHU+ROPGHIHDWV5RXVH\1LFN%RFNZLQNHOSDVVHVDZD\PRUH_:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU)LJXUH)RXU2« RADIO ARCHIVE NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE THE BOARD NEWS NOVEMBER 23, 2015 WRESTLING OBSERVER NEWSLETTER: HOLM DEFEATS ROUSEY, NICK BOCKWINKEL PASSES AWAY, MORE BY OBSERVER STAFF | [email protected] | @WONF4W TWITTER FACEBOOK GOOGLE+ Wrestling Observer Newsletter PO Box 1228, Campbell, CA 95009-1228 ISSN10839593 November 23, 2015 UFC 193 PPV POLL RESULTS Thumbs up 149 (78.0%) Thumbs down 7 (03.7%) In the middle 35 (18.3%) BEST MATCH POLL Holly Holm vs. Ronda Rousey 131 Robert Whittaker vs. Urijah Hall 26 Jake Matthews vs. Akbarh Arreola 11 WORST MATCH POLL Jared Rosholt vs. Stefan Struve 137 Based on phone calls and e-mail to the Observer as of Tuesday, 11/17. The myth of the unbeatable fighter is just that, a myth. In what will go down as the single most memorable UFC fight in history, Ronda Rousey was not only defeated, but systematically destroyed by a fighter and a coaching staff that had spent years preparing for that night. On 2/28, Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey were the two co-headliners on a show at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The idea was that Holm, a former world boxing champion, would impressively knock out Raquel Pennington, a .500 level fighter who was known for exchanging blows and not taking her down. Rousey was there to face Cat Zingano, a fight that was supposed to be the hardest one of her career. Holm looked unimpressive, barely squeaking by in a split decision. Rousey beat Zingano with an armbar in 14 seconds. Nobody came out of that night clamoring to see Rousey vs. Holm. Holm looked better in winning a decision over Marion Reneau, in another standup fight. Rousey destroyed Bethe Correia. So the plan was for Jessica Eye to be groomed for Rousey, except she got beat by Miesha Tate. UFC announced Tate as the challenger, and then changed their mind, figuring Rousey vs. Tate happened twice with Rousey winning via armbar both times, and with Holm, they could at least promote it as Rousey facing a multi-time world boxing champion. Holm started fighting in MMA in 2011, while still active in boxing. By 2013, her handlers, seeing how popular rousey had become, started training her specifically for Rousey. She'd already done kickboxing, so she wasn't a pure boxer. So the key was using her footwork to keep away and throw jabs and avoid the clinch, and if in the clinch, avoiding the throw. And if getting thrown, drilling endlessly on pulling out of the armbar. The key is that nobody that had fought Rousey up to that point wanted to run away from her, or more aptly, use footwork to make Rousey have to chase and wear herself out before getting a clinch. There are an endless number of reasons for what happened on 11/15 in Melbourne, Australia, and picking any single one as the key would be making things simpler than they were. KWWSPHPEHUVIZRQOLQHFRPZUHVWOLQJREVHUYHUQHZVOHWWHUQRYHPEHUZUHVWOLQJREVHUYHUQHZVOHWWHUKROPGHIHDWVURXVH\ 1RYHPEHU:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU1HZVOHWWHU+ROPGHIHDWV5RXVH\1LFN%RFNZLQNHOSDVVHVDZD\PRUH_:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU)LJXUH)RXU2« Rousey has been training to fight a certain way, because it worked. Holm had the two of the best MMA coaches in the world, Mike Winklejon and Greg Jackson, the latter the guru of game plans, who broke down Rousey's style. Holm showed up in the best shape of her life. Rousey was very clearly not in her best shape, and there were personal distractions everywhere that weren't conducive to having a clear focused head into a fight. Rousey's mother, AnnMaria DeMars, wasn't in Australia, the first time she wasn't at one of her fights. Her mother had publicly called her trainer, Edmond Tarverdyan, a fraud. Tarverdyan was facing problems with the IRS, claiming that he had earned no money in the last year, despite working as the trainer of a fighter who would probably be taking in $10 million this year. She was dating a married man who was accused by his wife of beating her, right after she had made fun of Floyd Mayweather Jr. for beating up women. While not a secret, she had always kept her relationships private, until he made it public. After it came out and it was brought up on a media call, instead of being ready with just a remark of how she doesn't want to discuss her personal life, instead, she hung up the phone. She was a few weeks from starting production in the movie "Road House," where she was not just in a fight scene, or in a small role, but the centerpiece and main star of the movie, in almost every scene and having to carry the movie with dialogue. There will be all sorts of comparisons made, whether to Mike Tyson leading into the Buster Douglas fight, or Rocky, leading into the first fight with Clubber Lang, or Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman. In some cases they fit and in some ways they didn't, although the end result of both the real boxing title fights and the scripted one, and her fight, were identical. The overconfident champion with too many distractions and not in her best shape loses. The difference is that Tyson really was a superior fighter to Douglas, but upsets happen and for various reasons, people have bad days. Lewis was a different level of boxer as Rahman, but underestimated his opponent and wasn't in shape and lost. Rousey clearly wasn't in her best shape, but the difference is, given the styles, even if she was, the Holm who showed up on that night, as opposed to the Holm who fought Pennington, was going to be difficult for her to beat. Rousey was not herself all week in Australia. She was fine in front of the public, but those close to the situation said she was very different behind the scenes. She freaked out at the weigh-ins and lost her composure while trying to, and building, last second hype for a fight that had no outside heat, and a show whose only draw was that it was a Saturday night with a Rousey fight, the 1993 notion of boxer vs. fighter and a totally awesome and oft-played video package of two little girls learning to fight judo and boxing from childhood, who years later are meeting on this day. Fortunately, the part about it being a Saturday night and a Rousey fight, by itself, was going to be enough to guarantee huge business even without the last minute SportsCenter moment and the 5 million Friday Google searches that put the event over the top. Once the fight started, it was the matador and the bull. Rousey charged after Holm, who continually danced away. Holm peppered her with shots and Rousey was bleeding. Rousey got tired quickly, and seemed to panic. She had trouble getting the clinch, and when she did, Holm escaped from it. When she couldn't Holm used her years of wrestling training that was part of the beat Rousey game plan to avoid being thrown. When she was thrown, she used her years of drilling armbar escapes to avoid what had been inevitable in all of Rousey's previous fights. Soon, Rousey was tired and couldn't throw her any longer, and in a straight kickboxing match, she was facing someone with 18 years of training and 50 professional fights fought standing, as opposed to someone who had spent maybe a few minutes of her entire career standing in a fight. Things were going badly in the first round. When it was over, Tarverdyan told her she was doing great. What? After being outcoached and with Rousey doing nothing that was working against someone programmed specifically for everything she was doing, he had no advice, nor ideas on changing the game plan. By then, it was probably too late anyway. Rousey was tired and lunging for a wild and desperation knockout. She threw a punch so hard and that missed so badly that she lost her balance and fell down. For all the talk in hindsight that she was a fraud, a Royce Gracie facing non-athletes (despite two recent foes being world class wrestlers, one a silver medalist in the Olympics, another a world champion in grappling and a couple of black belts who couldn't stop her armbar), the real comparison was Mark Coleman in overtime against Maurice Smith in 1997. When she got up, Holm landed a Peter Aerts style high kick to the neck and jaw, and Rousey collapsed. She left the ring before doing an interview. She was in the fetal position, crying hysterically, in the dressing room. Finally, they got her to go to the hospital, since she was needing plastic surgery for her lip that was split in two. When she flew home and landed in Los Angeles, she was hiding her face and wouldn't say a word. KWWSPHPEHUVIZRQOLQHFRPZUHVWOLQJREVHUYHUQHZVOHWWHUQRYHPEHUZUHVWOLQJREVHUYHUQHZVOHWWHUKROPGHIHDWVURXVH\ 1RYHPEHU:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU1HZVOHWWHU+ROPGHIHDWV5RXVH\1LFN%RFNZLQNHOSDVVHVDZD\PRUH_:UHVWOLQJ2EVHUYHU)LJXUH)RXU2« Aside from an instagram message, where she said she was fine and vowed to return, she's been quiet publicly. Many fighters, such as Kenny Florian and Daniel Cormier, have suggested that she needs to take a long time off and not rush back for a rematch. The fact is, she's got a couple of movies between now and July, so there's little time to improve her skill set with full days of learning new tactics. She is younger and could come into the second fight in better shape, with a different game plan.