# Predictions on Rousey-Holm? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [November 13, 2015, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479 "2015-11-13T17:01:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/61 "2015-11-16T18:58:41Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Avoiding punches and counter punching toe to toe with a professional boxer is a skill that takes years and years to learn. Most good professional boxers start going to a boxing gym in mid-early teens. It doesn’t make sense to even be going down that route in MMA which isn’t restricted to boxing rules when you have a strong skillset in other aspects of sports combat fighting. > > I just read that Rousey’s boxing coach says he doesn’t think Holm was getting the upper hand in the boxing/striking, and that the knock out came out of nowhere. That to me would be when I, if I was Rousey, fired him and hired a new coach. He’s delusional and that’s not something you need in a coach. Your boxing coach needs to be giving you reality based training, not fantasy. I don’t know who the guy is. Rousey looks like she was trained in the ju jitsu or judo style of punching, which is rather conservative and not well integrated with defense. I saw her punching in practice and a little bit in fights and she clearly does not get it. From the snippets online it’s clear Holm knew exactly how to move to avoid Ronda’s punch and plant her own fist right in Ronda’s face. Ronda moves straight forward when she punches, leaves her arm extended (she oughta know not to do that as an armbar specialist), and she has no movement following the punch to protect herself from a counter-punch. Untrained punchers in MMA hitting each other is nothing like a trained boxer going to work. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/62 "2015-11-17T04:07:11Z")
[Jack Slack over at VICE’s Fightland has an excellent analysis of the fight](http://fightland.vice.com/blog/how-holly-holm-killed-queen-ronda-rousey). In his opinion, the single largest factor was excellent footwork by Holm. He makes a good case, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/63 "2015-11-17T06:48:01Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Jack Slack over at VICE’s Fightland has an excellent analysis of the fight](http://fightland.vice.com/blog/how-holly-holm-killed-queen-ronda-rousey). > > In his opinion, the single largest factor was excellent footwork by Holm. He makes a good case, I think. Eh, I agree footwork is why she was able to continue to strike Ronda, avoid being set up for a take down, and eventually knock Ronda out. A huge part of boxing is controlling the ring and footwork, cutting the ring off, being able to move in ways that disrupt your opponent’s gameplan. But I immediately kinda disagreed with the meat of the article when it said it wasn’t about athleticism. Footwork can be about athleticism, and in Holm’s case it was. George Foreman had good footwork and good ring presence, but he wasn’t a quick or flighty fighter. Instead, he was a big bruiser who knew how to move guys around the ring. He knew how to make quicker more agile fighters “take two steps for his one”, and on those terms big George, not ever in the best cardio shape, could win a lot of fights. If he had to dance around the ring with a faster fighter he’d have been gassed early in all his fights and we wouldn’t know who he was, because he’d never have been a world champion and Olympian. But Holm’s footwork isn’t akin to George’s for hers to work you do have to be in good shape, and she is. Ronda is in much worse shape than Holm and that contributed to why she was unable to disrupt Holly’s movement and game plan. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/64 "2015-11-17T06:52:13Z")
It’s also simplistic to say Ronda wasn’t trying to box with Holly, because honestly–she was. I get that she was probably at least hoping to set up a clinch, and did once, but if you really watch that fight she’s visibly frustrated and based on all the boxing matches and UFC fights I’ve seen I think she’s fighting frustrated after about halfway through the first round. Her imbecilic wild punches are part of this, at that point I think she honestly didn’t know what to do, she was confused and lost, and she had bad coaching telling her to keep doing what she was doing. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/65 "2015-11-17T08:04:18Z")
So, how about Holly Holm and Floyd Mayweather then? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/66 "2015-11-17T10:07:23Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Didn’t Holm push her fist into Rousey’s face at the weigh in? That’s as far as I know of the backstory between these two. If so, Rousey was justified in being upset. I’m kind of annoyed now because it seems to be almost 90/10 people happy that Rousey lost. I like Rousey and I don’t really get the hate for her. I only briefly saw the weigh-in. It was Rousey who was the aggressor in that “scuffle”. Whatever happened once they came face to face im unsure of, but it was Rousey who stormed over like she was about to punch Holm’s lights out at the weigh-in. > [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > To be frank I believe UFC “stare down” and “weigh in” drama is sports entertainment. I think it’s 100% staged/fake. Ronda specifically is a huge pro wrestling fan and I think a lot of her behaviors are just geared to generate attention–she’s borrowing from Ali’s playbook (and he himself got the idea to act like a heel from pro wrestling) to make money. Dana White loves this stuff. This. Not only is it to get attention but it’s also to impose her will on opponents. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/67 "2015-11-17T10:29:04Z")
As I understand it, Rousey hooked her arm over Holm’s in an attempt to gain a more dominant position over Holm’s arm and in so doing wound up inadvertantly pulling Holm’s hand into her face, which she then played off as Holm’s doing. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/68 "2015-11-17T10:33:14Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > To be frank I believe UFC “stare down” and “weigh in” drama is sports entertainment. I think it’s 100% staged/fake. Ronda specifically is a huge pro wrestling fan and I think a lot of her behaviors are just geared to generate attention–she’s borrowing from Ali’s playbook (and he himself got the idea to act like a heel from pro wrestling) to make money. Dana White loves this stuff. Holly Holm agrees: > [@](#): > > Holm said she wasn’t phased by Rousey’s pre-fight bluster. > “You know before the fight when she didn’t touch gloves — it didn’t bother me,” Holm said. “It did get me a little fired up, but it’s go time anyway. I would have won the fight regardless of whether she touched my gloves or not. I’m going to hit you as hard as I can regardless of whether you touch my gloves or not.” > It was the same with the antics at the weigh-in. > “It surprised me but it was kind of fun actually. Who gets that intense like that in their (day-to-day) job? So it was kind of a fun day. I thought, ‘I’m ready to go.’ It got me fired up,” Holm said. “It’s still just the weigh-in, it doesn’t really matter what happens. All that matters is what happens after they ring the bell to start the fight.” from [Holly Holm opens up on Ronda Rousey, UFC 193 and her future](http://www.news.com.au/sport/ufc/holly-holm-opens-up-on-ronda-rousey-ufc-193-and-her-future/story-fnkjww7x-1227610967221) ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2015, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/69 "2015-11-17T11:42:13Z")
Yeah, if you watched Rousey’s little speech afterward the weigh in scuffle, it has all the aura of a professional wrestler who forgot his lines. She’s just not that good of an actress, and Holm had consistently been professional, polite, and complimentary toward Rousey. Having seen more of the fight, I wonder if the second punch broke Rousey’s nose. We haven’t seen a catalog of injuries yet, other than the lip gash that White had fixed by the top plastic surgeon in Australia, so I don’t know what other damage was done. But the punch-drunk confusion and wind-sucking, as well as that beautiful bloom of red from eye-to-eye points to a broken nose. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/70 "2015-11-19T00:19:17Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > As I understand it, Rousey hooked her arm over Holm’s in an attempt to gain a more dominant position over Holm’s arm and in so doing wound up inadvertantly pulling Holm’s hand into her face, which she then played off as Holm’s doing. Very clever move on RR’s part! ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/71 "2015-11-19T00:21:08Z")
> [@bobkitty](#): > > Yeah, if you watched Rousey’s little speech afterward the weigh in scuffle, it has all the aura of a professional wrestler who forgot his lines. She’s just not that good of an actress,… This reminds me…has anybody, other than myself, fallen asleep just thinking of the movie with her and Wahlberg? (sp) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2015, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/72 "2015-11-21T09:08:27Z")
[Here’s an interesting behind the scenes video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vomhIvxqulg&feature=youtu.be) featuring post fight moments I haven’t seen anywhere before. Once family reactions are over, there are scenes of Ronda on her feet sharing a post fight hug with Holly Holm (1:12) and walking through the crowd back to her dressing room, along with scenes of Holly celebrating her victory. Frankly, Ronda looked better than I expected. It’s too bad these scenes weren’t made public shortly after the fight, it would have helped allay fears that some of us had for Ronda’s post fight well-being. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479/73 "2016-02-16T17:24:53Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > My take on the fight was that Rousey got her bell rung early by failing to slip a hard Holm punch and never recovered. Analysis after that early punch is moot, since she was in constant recovery at that point. A tiny zombie appears: This is [Rousey’s analysis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwCdv9iR8P8) as well. Don’t read the comments. Why are people jerks? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/predictions-on-rousey-holm/737479.md?page=3)