Smartest Guy at the Bar: UFC 193 Edition
The Ronda Rousey show, aka UFC 193, goes down on Saturday at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia. Rousey’s reign over the Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight division -- a division that was instituted because of her presence in the sport -- has her star shining brighter than the gold around her waist. Rousey will defend her title against Holly Holm in the headliner of what promises to be the UFC’s biggest event to date, at least from an attendance standpoint. The current record of more than 55,000 fans was set by UFC 129 in Toronto in April 2011 and will likely be surpassed, as Etihad Stadium is scaled for some 15,000 more spectators than the Rogers Centre. The UFC seems to be pushing its current generation of stars into stadium shows around the globe, and Rousey is at the forefront of the movement. Paired with an undefeated former boxing champion in Holm, Rousey will be defending the women’s bantamweight title for the third time this year. A victory would tie her with Demetrious Johnson for fourth place on the UFC’s all-time list for successful title defenses with seven, trailing only Jon Jones, Georges St. Pierre and Anderson Silva. Those are the historical stakes fueling the sport’s biggest star.
HOW WE GOT HERE: If someone wanted to take a unique route from America to Australia to watch UFC 193 live, they could have chartered a cruise on an ocean of Miesha Tate’s tears. Rousey’s armbars twice submitted “Cupcake,” but Tate won what the UFC called a no. 1 contender fight against Jessica Eye in July, only to watch organizational brass U-turn away from the title shot she had supposedly earned. That left Tate with a bitter taste. Meanwhile, Holm’s first two UFC appearances did not deliver the fireworks for which the promotion had hoped. Nevertheless, Holm got the nod over Tate. While Holm and the Jackson-Wink MMA team wanted more fight time before stepping up to challenge Rousey, opportunities to vie for titles -- and the pay bump a bout with the 2008 Olympic judo bronze medalist offers -- are hard to pass up. The UFC’s call was answered.
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ROWDY’S WAY OR THE HIGHYWAY: Rousey’s position as the UFC’s most visible athlete has its perks, the power to call her own shots chief among them. She is a red-carpet fighter with a cash flow that exceeds everyone involved with her. Despite the clout, she still has to answer to her mother. AnnMaria De Mars told LatiNation a month before her daughter’s title defense that Rousey’s head trainer, Edmond Tarverdyan, was “a terrible coach.” The former judo world champion implored Rousey to burn her bridge to Tarverdyan and scorch the earth behind it. However, Rousey remains entrenched under Tarverdyan’s watch at the Glendale Fight Club, and both champion and trainer declined to comment on De Mars’ comments at a media day function for UFC 193. To add to Rousey’s untouchable image, her line to a conference call disconnected when a reporter inquired about her romantic relationship with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne. The message: If Rousey has already released an official statement on a subject, like she has about her involvement with Browne, any future questions will be met with a proverbial guillotine. She has always been open with the media, but the wear and tear of constant interview blitzes, the increased magnitude of her fights and her growing celebrity suggest Rousey’s patience has thinned. To top it all off, Bloody Elbow reported that Tarverdyan had recently filed for bankruptcy. That story is more than the Smartest Guy at the Bar can unpack during a Foster’s tall can. It will not be going away anytime soon, though, especially if Holm springs the upset and observers are left to search for reasons why Rousey’s reign ended. Also at her media day, Rousey mentioned that personal turmoil drives her to excel in competition. Based on how her personal matters have played out in public, it seems she will have more motivation than in previous outings. Rousey has had no issues kicking challengers out of the passenger’s seat, but against a professional, stylistic opposite like Holm, distracted driving could cost her, no matter how steep the odds are in her favor.
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LIGHTER MOVEMENT: Strawweight Joanna Jedrzejczyk is not the dominant titleholder Rousey is yet, but she has been exciting and well-received enough to secure the nickname “Joanna Champion.” The Polish titleholder has a reverse wrestling/dissecting striking game and the kind of cold swagger necessary to make her own star. The undefeated Jedrzejczyk is riding high during a breakout year that has seen her TKO Carla Esparza for the 115-pound championship and smash Jessica Penne in her first title defense, earning $50,000 post-fight performance bonuses in both bouts. If the 28-year-old goes 3-for-3 in title fights, she will enter “Fighter of the Year” territory, regardless of gender. In her way stands American Top Team’s Valerie Letourneau. Like Holm, Letourneau is around a 10-to-1 underdog who prepares at an elite camp and sports an undefeated UFC record. The Canadian will ride a three-fight winning streak into the co-main event, but only the last two have taken place at 115 pounds. All those factors contribute to anemic momentum -- a situation exacerbated by the fact that she is replacing the true No. 1 contender, the injured Claudia Gadelha. Letourneau has only lost to top competition, and the 32-year-old has nothing-to-lose-everything-to-gain attitude in her back pocket. Jedrzejczyk is well-positioned to become the face of the more competitive UFC women’s division, but Letourneau has the chance to wrench it all away, even as Gadelha waits in the wings.
SAY WHAT: Mark Hunt has a 10-10-1 record, including a 5-4-1 mark in the UFC, but “The Super Samoan” has somehow shaped himself into a fringe heavyweight contender late in his career. Long dogged by questions about his conditioning, Hunt has shed 44 pounds ahead of his rematch with Antonio Silva -- a man against whom he fought to a memorable five-round majority draw in 2013. That means no more cutting weight to make the 265-pound limit for heavyweights. At 41, Hunt is in the best shape of his fighting career, but performing on all cylinders at his advanced competitive age is another matter. Fortunately, the knockouts on his resume are the only numbers about which Hunt truly cares. They are where his money and future rest, and he has designs on a vengeance tour through past opponents, starting with “Bigfoot” Silva. “You know me, I’m down to party anywhere. We can party anywhere, in your house, in Australia, anywhere. I never lose a rematch,” Hunt told Ariel Helwani in September. “I’ve never lost a rematch in my whole career. I want to party with all those guys again, so it’ll be good. I need to win this fight. I need to win just to let people know that I’m still in contention here and not on my way out.”
AWARDS WATCH: The “Performance of the Night” honors at UFC 193 are clearly earmarked for Rousey and Jedrzejczyk. Odds that leave their opponents this far behind suggest that their bouts are being viewed more as concert performances than fistfights. While an upset would certainly bank either challenger, Holm or Letourneau, some bonus cash, the smart money is on the champions ... “Fight of the Night” should go to middleweights Robert Whittaker and Uriah Hall. Both men are coming off stellar performances: Whittaker knocked out Brad Tavares at UFC Fight Night “Miocic vs. Hunt” on May 10 and Hall scored a stunning short-notice upset against Gegard Mousasi at UFC Fight Night “Barnett vs. Nelson” on Sept. 26. Hall enters the cage on the strength of back-to-back wins, as he steps in for the injured Michael Bisping. Whittaker will be looking for his fourth straight victory. This knock-out-or-be-knocked-out clash should bring the heat before a record crowd.
Danny Acosta is a SiriusXM Rush (Channel 93) host and contributor. His writing has been featured on Sherdog.com for nearly a decade. Find him on Twitter and Instagram @acostaislegend.
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