The backlash against Ronda Rousey was swift and fierce. From U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump to global pop star Lady Gaga, numerous people who had been waiting to indulge in her misery got their moment. It wasn’t enough for them to see her splayed unconscious on the mat; for them it seemed necessary to literally add insult to injury.
For the first time in her professional fighting career, Rousey failed. For the first time, she must find a way to pick herself up, fight the self-doubts that come with losing and move forward with a new plan.
For the Rousey supporters, the good news is that she has experience in overcoming adversity. For instance, she has always cited her inability to win an Olympic gold medal in judo as her inspiration to succeed in MMA. That was the fire beneath her. So she does have a history of rebounding.
But to do so this time, it will take more than simple will. What Holly Holm exploited in Rousey during her UFC 193 women’s bantamweight title win were significant shortcomings that need to be remedied, because as anyone who follows professional sports knows, everyone is always looking to learn from a winner. Future Rousey opponents were certainly taking notes.
With lessons learned from Saturday night, here are a few things Rousey can do to pick up the pieces.
1) Don’t take an immediate rematch
It took all of an hour following the fight for UFC President Dana White to accede to rematch interest, saying “it makes a lot of sense.” And from his point of view, which is mostly financial, it certainly does.
People who think the UFC lost Ronda Rousey as a cash cow are wrong. For an example, you only have to look at another fighter who also lost the cloak of invincibility, Anderson Silva. He scored the biggest pay-per-view audience of his career in his rematch with Chris Weidman, the fight right after he was knocked out to end his historic middleweight title reign.
Rousey will still draw a huge audience and big money when she returns. However, she probably only gets one real do-over, so the pressure is on to win next time. And pressure has been her constant shadow for the last few years. In 2015, she fought three times, released a New York Times bestselling book, appeared in two movies that combined to gross more than $1.5 billion worldwide and did multiple global media tours.
She hasn’t just earned the right to relax, she needs to exercise it—to get away from the turmoil around her and reset her mind for what’s next.
And then, regardless of the UFC’s desires, she needs to take a fight against someone else in order to work on the parts of her game that need improvement.
2) Refocus her ambitions
As mentioned, Rousey has been everywhere in the last year or two. Did she spread herself too thin? Only she knows for sure, but there is little question that the pressure of stardom has begun to crush her. She said as much when she essentially told Holm pre-fight that no one really understands how difficult it is to be the champion until she’s there.
There was a bit of confession in that statement, and it’s one that has been echoed from champions such as Matt Hughes—who even years before the UFC exploded said it was “a relief” to lose the belt—Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre. Rousey is the biggest star MMA has ever had, so the stress was exponentially greater on her.
If she wants to regain the title, she needs to put some of her other projects aside. Not everything, because it’s good to have an outlet outside of her job, but improving as a fighter has to be her main focus. If that means angering Hollywood or sponsors, so be it. They will not abandon her if she wins again, but if she loses, a lot of that is in jeopardy anyway.
3) Reconsider strategy, refine footwork
From the beginning, Rousey’s fight tactics have always been predicated on pressure. She is going to move forward, knowing that her opponents fear her clinch, which forces them into making a decision. In that way, she is similar to a poker player who consistently bets heavy and forces your hand, putting you on the defensive from the get-go.
Until now, no opponent has handled the situation well, but Holm, through her decade-plus of boxing, had the footwork and composure to keep herself mostly out of the clinch. Her focus was on lateral movement and circling away, which put the impetus back on Rousey to chase and often to overextend herself. It was during those moments when Rousey ignored her footwork for straight aggression that Holm would easily tag her with her straight left.
Rousey’s mistakes in chasing were both basic and correctable. Consistently, she inadvertently lined herself up with Holm’s left hand by keeping her lead foot inside of Holm’s lead foot, a fundamental error against a southpaw. Rousey has faced southpaws before, but she looked woefully underprepared for it and needs to take the time to address the mistakes that led to the loss.
4) Consider a coaching shake-up
It’s easy from afar to tell someone to change her life and comfort level by making a change in coaching, but my colleague Patrick Wyman made a strong case for why Rousey needs to do so.
I cannot speak to Edmond Tarverdyan’s specific skills as a coach, as I have never seen him run a regular training session, but even if Rousey wants to stay affiliated with him, she should consider adding a head strategist to her camp. Tarverdyan didn’t offer her any constructive advice between rounds, instead suggesting she was doing well in the stand-up portion when in fact she was getting battered.
Rousey would benefit from someone with more MMA experience who could hone her transitions from striking into clinching. That’s something that someone like Weidman has mastered, and it essentially serves to offer two threats in one, similar to the way Rousey can chain multiple submissions together and force her opponent to pick their poison. Working with a coach who could tighten up those transitions would make her more effective in taking away Holm’s distance.
Holm showed the value of having such a strategist through her own clinch defense, which shut down Rousey’s vaunted judo throws through focusing on her hip placement in relation to Rousey’s and using the cage as a defense mechanism. Her ability to prepare for those moments through the coaching of Team Jackson-Winkeljohn swung the momentum toward her.
5) Train in a regulation cage all the time
This relates to Points 3 and 4 in terms of Rousey being underprepared. At her home gym, Glendale Fighting Club, the only cage is a tiny one that only requires a few steps from one side to the other.
By contrast, a UFC Octagon in use for pay-per-view events is 30 feet across and includes 750 square feet of fighting surface. Its wide-angled corners make the process of cutting off an opponent an art, one that must be learned through experience. It seems clear that working in a tiny cage or a boxing ring does not offer Rousey the opportunities necessary to learn that dance. To improve her chances against someone with a truly polished level of footwork such as Holm, repetition under simulated circumstances would be invaluable.
Rousey has the athleticism and work ethic to rebound from her loss. While she cannot master boxing in a few months’ time, many fighters before her have proved they can learn enough to diffuse their opponents’ main strengths enough to assert their own. Holm did that exact thing to Rousey in Australia.
Can Rousey do the same next time? It’s mostly up to her.
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