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The Question: Did UFC Make the Right Call with Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm?

Ronda Rousey, the most dominant champion in UFC history, has fought wrestlers, jiu-jitsu black belts and rock-’em-sock-’em brawlers. Each, in turn, has been dispatched—most in the first round, many in the first minute.
A new challenge awaits in t…

A new challenge awaits in the form of boxer Holly Holm, a former world champion in that sport who has wracked up an impressive 9-0 record in her burgeoning MMA career. Holm will bring her rangy jab and quick feet into the Octagon to test Rousey at UFC 195 on January 2 in Las Vegas. It’s a bout that, on Twitter at least, sparked no small amount of controversy.

The New Year’s weekend show traditionally features one of the promotion’s biggest stars—and Rousey certainly fits that bill. Can Holm live up to her end of the bargain? Or was Miesha Tate, originally expected to be Rousey‘s next opponent, the better choice?

Lead writers Jeremy Botter and Jonathan Snowden, Bleacher Report’s version of The Captain and Tenille will explore the fight and render a verdict.

Jonathan: The Internet exploded when Rousey announced—on Good Morning America by the way—that she’d be fighting Holly Holm in January. Not only is that about as mainstream as it gets, but it was actually a pleasant surprise. Until that moment, I had been under the impression that Rousey‘s next fight would be against Tate. Frankly, that wasn’t doing much to excite me.

While she’s a fine fighter, and one who seems to be improving well into her career, Tate’s also a fighter who has lost twice to Rousey. Neither fight was particularly competitive. Holm may or may not manage to push Rousey to her limits. She’s struggled at times in her brief UFC career and fights a style predicated on being better than her opponent for 25 minutes. That’s a tough task against a fighter like Rousey, who punishes any mistake harshly.

But while Holm may not be a tougher test than Tate, at the very least she’s a different kind of test. I think that’s important as Rousey continues to build her legacy and carry the sport to the masses.

Jeremy: I don’t think Rousey will struggle much, if at all, when facing Holm.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go on Twitter and proclaim that the sky is falling because Holm hasn’t faced any top-10 opponents and doesn’t deserve such a lofty fight. I’ve seen social media users say that nobody will buy this fight and that it should be on free television. People seriously say this mere weeks after more than 1 million people bought a fight to see Rousey face Bethe Correia!

And you’re right: Holm is a different test. I didn’t really mind the idea of seeing Rousey-Tate 3, but that’s mostly because at this point, Rousey fights have become an exercise in “how fast is she gonna win this time?” And while there’s nothing wrong with that, to an extent, we already know that Tate can take her past the first round. Hell, maybe this time Tate takes her to a decision? What a wondrous moment that would be!

Yeah, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Which is why I’m fine with Holm getting this shot. But the only way this truly works is if they match up Tate with Cris Cyborg, ideally on the same card. That’s my opinion, anyway; I’d like to know yours.

Jonathan: Styles make fights. What’s interesting about Holm is that she’s going to do things Rousey has never seen before in the cage. Almost everyone charges at Ronda, hoping to land that desperation knockout punch before inevitably getting dumped on their head and submitted.

Holm isn’t that kind of fighter. She’ll be on her bicycle throughout, cutting angles, throwing body kicks and basically trying to stay the heck away from Rousey. It has the potential to test the champ’s patience and technique.

Or maybe she’ll get trucked like everyone else. At least with Holm, there is a path to victory. Most fighters can’t make that claim.

As for Cyborg, if I were the UFC I’d be scared to death of a fight with Tate. In a best-case scenario, you do the fight on the Rousey undercard, and she overwhelms Tate just like she overwhelms everyone else. That sets up the huge Cyborg vs. Rousey fight we’ve all been waiting for.

But what if Cyborg struggles with her weight cut and then struggles with Tate? Would it be better to sell a fight between Rousey and Cyborg’s highlight reel? That becomes harder if Tate pushes her limits—or worse, beats her. What then?

Jeremy: If Cyborg can’t get it done against Tate, then I don’t have much interest in seeing her try against Rousey. She’s a terrifying force of nature, to be sure, but if she gets out-grappled by a high school wrestler? Rousey will literally throw her around the Octagon at will.

My thing is: The UFC will almost certainly want Rousey on the UFC 200 card next summer. They’ll want to build up an opponent for her. Sure, you can throw Cyborg right in there and sell a lot of pay-per-views.

But imagine if she goes in and destroys Tate on the undercard of Rousey-Holm? Casual fans will finally know who she is, and they will fear her, and they will believe she is a legitimate threat.

And by the same token, if Tate beats this terrifying woman who we’ve been hearing for years is the biggest threat to Rousey‘s throne? She suddenly becomes a much more interesting challenger, even after losing the first two bouts.

Yeah, you waste one contender by booking that fight. But in doing so, you also build up a special challenger for Rousey, even if it’s Tate for the third time.

Jonathan: I agree. It works out well if Cyborg steamrolls Tate or if Tate pulls off a miracle. But what if Cyborg comes out at 135 pounds and reveals herself to be the kind of fighter who struggles with Ronda’s leftovers?

That, to me, makes the subsequent Rousey fight just a little bit less exciting.

The safest play is leaving Cyborg behind the curtain and unveiling her only when it matters most. But perhaps it’s worth the gamble to turn this fight into the kind of mega-event this sport has yet to see.

No matter who she fights, if Rousey is on television, it’s appointment viewing. Let’s face it: Tate, Holm and Cyborg would all be some variation of “that woman who is fighting Ronda Rousey” to most in the mainstream.

It didn’t really matter who Steven Seagal was beating up when he was at the height of his action-star fame. You just knew somebody was taking a brutal beating. That’s where we are with Rousey. And you know what? I’m loving it.

Jonathan Snowden and Jeremy Botter cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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Just When You Thought ‘The Anderson Silva Show’ Couldn’t Get Weirder, It Does

Anderson Silva, the most accomplished fighter in UFC history, was suspended for one year by the Nevada Athletic Commission after testing positive for multiple banned substances before and after his UFC 183 fight with Nick Diaz. The suspension, retroact…

The punishment comes as no surprise following test failures for everything from steroid metabolites to anti-anxiety medications. For Silva, it could have been an easy afternoon and the first steps toward rebuilding his tattered legacy.

But, rather than admit guilt and accept the commission’s verdict, Silva attempted a bizarre defense that included admission of regular use of off-brand medication to treat erectile dysfunction. The Guardian‘s Josh Gross has the details:

If there’s anything to be shocked by it’s that Silva was apparently oblivious that taking an unmarked sexual enhancement stimulant from Thailand might lead to bad results, or that he shouldn’t have notified regulators. But for three months after receiving the blue vial from Marcos Fernandes, whom Silva identified as the person who gave it to him, the former No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in MMA apparently had no compunction about using the stuff.

“I’m human and I make mistakes,” Silva said through a translator. “It was definitely a mistake.”

It was also, indisputably, hilarious, a comedy of errors that included incomprehensible testimony from Silva centering around erectile enhancement drugs, a mid-testimony firing of his translator, interruptions from pranksters calling the public conference line to play sexually charged songs like “Let’s Talk About Sex” by Salt-N-Pepa and venerable MMA scribe Kevin Iole being forced to type the words “liquid supplement taken for sexual performance.”

As MMA Fighting’s Luke Thomas explained, the tomfoolery was the perfect antidote to the Commission’s overwhelming sense of entitlement and self-seriousness:

The NAC fashions itself as the Adults In The Room, deeply-concerned chin strokers who parade their patriarchal sense of knowing what’s best for everyone in the most overly serious, moralizing of ways. Their job is important, but their sense of entitlement is outrageous. If their proceedings call out for anything, it’s pranksters who aren’t required to buy into their brand of enforcement, preferring to liven up the atmosphere instead.

Silva’s test failures come at the tail end of what will certainly be a Hall of Fame career. He’s built his legend on the extraordinary, making remarkable and balletic martial techniques appear almost run-of-the-mill. From knocking out former light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin with a jab while in full retreat to the front kick that ended Vitor Belfort’s night, Silva has wowed us for a decade.

When you think about it, it should come as no surprise that even Silva’s regulatory hearings are spectacular fun. The former champion also caught a lucky break. Under new guidelines the Nevada Athletic Commission approved in May, Silva would have been suspended for two years for this initial offense. Since his test failures predate the new rules, he escaped with just a single year on lockdown.

The suspension ends the worst two-year period of his career, including a shocking knockout loss to Chris Weidman in 2013 and a gruesome leg break in a rematch later that year. He’ll be ready to return to action by February, 2016.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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UFC Fight Night 73: A New Name Emerges in the Ronda Rousey Sweepstakes

Two right hands by Amanda Nunes did more than just drop poor Sara McMann to the mat Saturday night in Nashville—though they did that in resounding fashion, forcing the muscular former Olympian to collapse to the ground and give in to the storm that soon surrounded her. The cringe was contagious as McMann‘s body disobeyed every ounce of training and gave in to the animal instinct to protect yourself at all costs.

More important than the rear-naked-choke, first-round finish, the 27-year-old rangy Brazilian punched her ticket and officially entered her name in the Ronda Rousey sweepstakes. In women’s MMA, that’s the most valuable prize of all.

“I don’t need to talk,” Nunes said at the post-fight press conference. “I’m going to step in the cage and do my thing. My next fights are going to be like this—I’m going to win more bonuses and knock people out. Submit. For sure, I’m going to have my title shot soon.”

We’ve written thousands of words about who’s next for Rousey. Around the Internet, that number no doubt runs into the millions. But words are wind—and for three years it’s barely mattered who was next. It’s hard to care about someone you know will be in your life for a minute or less.

No one comes to the picture show to see the opening-act henchman who gets dispatched before the first plot twist. They come to see Super Woman—and right now, Ronda Rousey is wearing the cape.

Considering the lack of time and resources spent building any women’s bantamweight not named Rousey, the assembly-line athletes who have bravely walked to the cage against her might as well have had serial numbers tattooed on their foreheads. Learning their names was more effort than it was worth.

Rousey, an avid video game player, likely realizes she’s faced nothing but NPC’s to this point. The boss at the end of the level has yet to make herself known. With shocking speed, Rousey has toppled almost every contender like a line of dominoes, each a variation on one theme—victim.

Instead of a growth curve, we’ve seen diminishing returns, latter contenders losing in increasingly embarrassing fashion. Most of these women, though plenty skilled, lack Rousey‘s pure athleticism and physical prowess.

Not so for Nunes. Still more potential than polish constitutes her game. But, as Bloody Elbow’s Nate Wilcox writes, there is a lot to be excited about:

The blend of skills she showed against McMann might make her the biggest threat to Rousey‘s title currently in the UFC women’s bantamweight division.

She showed sharp and skillful striking on the feet and reversed the Olympic wrestler on a takedown attempt. Once Nunes was on top of McMann the destruction was as methodical as it was inevitable.

In a perfect world, Nunes would be allowed time for more seasoning. After all, just last September she snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Cat Zingano and has had problems in the past when a fight slips into the latter rounds.

But this isn’t a perfect world, and the cupboard at 135 pounds is bare. Nunes may not have polish, but she’s solid silver, a top-shelf prospect with the raw physicality to challenge Rousey. In today’s UFC, that’s more than good enough to serve the Queen.

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The Question: Is Mayweather-Rousey the Worst ‘Storyline’ in Combat Sports?

The never-ending feud between boxer Floyd Mayweather and burgeoning MMA star Ronda Rousey continued Thursday night as Mayweather attempted to plug his “final” fight with Andre Berto on ESPN’s SportsCenter. The questioning, as it apparently must, turned to Rousey, who competes in a different sport, in a different weight class and is a different gender than the boxing legend.

Required to say something, he did his best to smack away the question, and perhaps Rousey herself, like a pesky fly.

“I’ve yet to see any MMA fighter, or other boxer, make over $300 million in 36 minutes,” Mayweather said. “When she can do that, then call me.”

It was a nice counterpunch to Rousey‘s July attack at the ESPYS in which she made a cutting remark about Mayweather’s past issues with domestic violence.

“I wonder how Floyd feels being beaten by a woman for once,” Rousey asked, delighting bloggers and creating a viral wave of stories across the Internet.

No doubt this latest remark will keep the feud on the front pages for another week. But who does this benefit? And what is its purpose? Bleacher Report’s version of Sonny and Cher, lead writers Jeremy Botter and Jonathan Snowden, explore the only question that matters here: Is this worth all the time we’ve invested in it, or is Rousey vs. Mayweather the least interesting feud in all of combat sports?

Jonathan: It’s an extension of an on-going battle between MMA fighters and Mayweather, a battle Mayweather mostly wins by completely ignoring people who are several hundred rungs below him on the long ladder of stardom. For years MMA fighters have been calling Mayweather out. And, for years, he’s barely deigned to answer. Why should he? He’s the biggest star in a completely different sport. The whole thing feels a little bit like a little brother trying hard to get big brother’s attention. And that’s not a good look for a sport trying to convince people it’s on the path to world domination.

Rousey, however, has achieved a level of stardom that makes her hard to ignore. Mayweather has to respond in some way—and so we get this, whatever this is.

On a personal level, I hate it because it means I have to answer speculative questions from mainstream radio outlets about who would win a potential fight between the two. And that is not a question I find particularly interesting or a premise I think we should spend much time indulging.

Considering Mayweather’s domestic violence issues and MMA’s own serious issues, do we really want to open the Pandora’s Box of intergender combat? What do you think, Jeremy?

Jeremy: I’m with you all the way here. I groan internally whenever I’m on the radio with some host who thinks that asking if this is a fight that’s ever going to happen is a great question. I’ve taken to simply answering “no,” and then waiting for the silence to end so we can move on to a better topic.

Because it’s not just that this is a dumb topic. It’s that this is the dumbest topic of them all. As you mentioned, there are far more serious things to discuss when it comes to mixed martial arts. There are many issues facing this sport, and there are also legitimate fights coming up that deserve our consideration.

And yet, because we have professional media trolls who keep bringing this stupid subject up, and because we have media in the MMA sphere who know that a “Rousey vs. Mayweather” headline of any variation will pull in hundreds of thousands of clicks, we’re stuck rehashing a version of this story every few months.

It’s as though MMA can’t stand on its own without mentioning the highest-paid athlete in the world. It’s like you said: we’re screaming for attention, and the best way to say “Hey, look at me, you guys!” is by invoking Mayweather’s name. It’s an instant way to get attention. It’s also disingenuous, because there isn’t a single intelligent person in the world who thinks this is a thing that should happen.

And yet, here we are, discussing Ronda and Floyd again. The circle that never ends, the train with no destination. I just wish it would stop.

Jonathan: This isn’t just a media problem though. The UFC is a major driver of this narrative and has been for years. Dana White in particular seems to take great joy in describing what Rousey would do to men in a street fight. Announcer Joe Rogan has said she’d beat many of the men in her weight class.

It’s like they aren’t happy with Rousey simply being the greatest female MMA fighter in the world. Note how often she’s compared to men.

White has even described her as “like a dude trapped in this beautiful body.” Being the best woman in the sport doesn’t feel like a big enough accomplishment, at least in the eyes of the UFC. The shadow of gender looms over everything. And that’s kind of a shame.

Jeremy: I’m sure some in the UFC would point to the fact that women are even in the UFC as a sign of forward progress, at least given how White used to scoff at the notion of women fighting in his precious Octagon.

But that’s a silly notion. Perhaps the talent level of the women’s divisions overall is not where it will eventually be. But Rousey is an athlete beyond compare, world-class in every facet. That she’s beautiful doesn’t matter one bit, or at least it shouldn’t. You’ve watched her even during warm-ups; she is a finely tuned machine the likes of which we’ve never seen in mixed martial arts.

She’s not a “dude trapped in a woman’s body.” She’s one of the world’s best athletes, period, and puts nearly every “dude” fighter on the UFC’s roster to shame with her athleticism. And it’s such a damn shame that we are constantly seeking to compare her to Mayweather rather than accept the fact that she’s just head and tails above her competition.

She does not need to be compared to men. She needs to be compared to Billie Jean King and other landscape-altering athletes. In 25 years, I suspect Ronda Rousey will be remembered as an important figure for what she did for female athletes in mixed martial arts.

Mayweather? He’ll be remembered as a dude who made a lot of money putting on boring fights. Rousey doesn’t need to be compared to that guy. Not now, and not ever.

Jonathan: At this point, it would make more sense for the UFC and Rousey to put more effort into building fights between Rousey and other women instead of a fight between Ronda and Floyd that shouldn’t happen—and won’t.

Last week we made note of the UFC’s paltry efforts when it comes to promoting women who aren’t Ronda Rousey. That’s kind of a big deal.

Let’s talk about Miesha Tate. Let’s talk about Holly Holm. If you’re blessed with endless patience, let’s even talk about Cyborg. But one name that shouldn’t be mentioned together with MMA, ever again, is Floyd Mayweather. The final bell rang for that conversation some time ago.

Jonathan Snowden and Jeremy Botter cover combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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The Impossible Task: Meet the Fighter Who Could Beat UFC Champion Ronda Rousey

The latest chapter in the Ronda Rousey story took just 34 seconds, a furious blitz ending in a right hand to the temple that turned poor Bethe Correia’s lights out. For pay-per-view buyers, that’s $1.76 per glorious second for the pleasure of watching …

While 34 seconds may seem like a blink of an eye in a bout scheduled to go 25 minutes, in Rousey’s world, it was a relative eternity. After all, her last two fights lasted a mere 30 seconds—combined.

“She’s the most badass woman anyone has ever seen,” UFC President Dana White told Fox’s Ariel Helwani. White is known to speak a language all his own, one made up entirely of hyperbole, invective and swears. But here at least, he seems prescient.

Beating Ronda Rousey is no easy task. She dispatched the Olympic wrestler Sara McMann in just over a minute. Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Alexis Davis didn’t even manage that much success—she got knocked out in just 16 seconds. Slugger Sarah Kaufman did a bit better than that, lasting almost an entire minute before tapping out to an armbar.

That’s essentially every MMA archetype, the best example of each in the women’s bantamweight division, disposed of like they were little more than children. Scariest of all, at least for prospective foes, is the indisputable fact Rousey is only getting better.

“She’s going to continue to be a problem for everyone because it’ll be a pick-your-poison scenario,” UFC on Fox commentator Kenny Florian said after the fight. “If you respect the hands, you get thrown down. If you don’t, you’ll get punched. This is years and years of competing at an elite level. She’s looking to finish her opponent the second the bell rings.

…

“Ronda just finds a new way to win each time. This fight will add more value to her training in the future. She’ll pick out mistakes and get better with her striking and get even more dangerous. She knows she can submit you, and now she can use her striking and develop that more, and get even better. There’s no one in the division who can offer competition.”

What Rousey does, she does very well. She’s a next-level athlete, strong and fast and hyper aggressive. Her game is built around the clinch, an area of expertise she spent years perfecting en route to two Olympic Games representing the United States in Judo. When she puts hands on you, it’s all over.

Even when Rousey is intent on using her hands, as she was here against a light-punching opponent who was practically tailor-made for trying out new techniques, her clinch still informs everything. The flurry that finished Correia, after all, came immediately after the challenger was tossed ignominiously on her rump.

But as former Bleacher Report analyst Jack Slack explained in a great piece on Fightland, that result is not an inevitability:

There was nothing to stop any of Rousey’s opponents from circling away from her. Rousey didn’t methodically work them toward the fence, cutting off the cage and taking away space each time, all while staying down behind her guard. No, Rousey rushed them on a straight line. Boxing 101: step off line and circle away from the edge of the ring.

And if you do get close to the corner, you fake to go one way and you change directions. Really basic, but game changing stuff.

Correia fought like she had read Slack’s breakdown—and was determined to do everything exactly wrong. She stood right in front of Rousey as she charged, refusing to move offline and doing what every startled deer does when the lioness attacks. She stood her ground and threw her right hand.

That, of course, is exactly what Rousey wants. She knows she’s going to get hit charging in. She accepts it as a cost of doing business. If you plant your feet to unleash a haymaker, Rousey has won already.

Beating Rousey won’t be a matter of brute strength and aggression. She has the market cornered on those attributes. It won’t come by improving your clinch game and working hard on your bottom game. That merely delays things. She’s spent a lifetime mastering those elements—a three-month training camp won’t be enough.

Taking her bantamweight title will come down to discipline, distance and bravado. Killing the queen won’t be the result of mindless brawling. It will happen when a fighter stares down the charging bull and simply, elegantly, steps gently to the side and watches her pass by.

Right now, it seems like Rousey is head and shoulders above all competition. But there is a fighter lurking who might just have the particular skill set required to do the impossible. While Miesha Tate steps into the cage for a third time against the champion, a dark horse bides her time.

Holly Holm awaits.

Hardcore fans have been tracking Holm’s development carefully since her MMA debut in 2011. Twice Ring Magazine‘s Female Boxer of the Year, Holm was a constant presence on the New Mexico fight scene, drawing thousands of fans to a variety of tiny casinos along Route 66 to watch her work. In 2013, she officially put boxing in her rear-view mirror to concentrate on MMA full time.

Holm, despite making her UFC debut a little more than five months ago, has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about a potential Rousey fight.

“Ronda has been incredible and she’s run through everyone without it being too much of a competition,” Holm told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole. “She can clinch and toss you to the ground and then arm bar you in two seconds. But if you don’t get close enough, you can’t hit her. You have to be able to put together a game plan to get past that.”

Ironically, it’s the very traits that would serve her well in a Rousey fight that have caused many to label Holm a disappointment in her initial UFC forays. Holm’s ability to control the distance with her footwork and strong kicking game is often mislabeled. The style many people call “too cautious” or “lacking killer instinct” is the very formula needed to throw Rousey off her game.

This patience, science and discipline, things some fans consider to be “boring,” composes a strategy that seems almost perfectly designed to lure a charging Rousey into trouble. Rousey’s complete lack of nuance and propensity to throw her punches like a drunken sailor on a one-day pass could create opportunities for Holly to angle off her front leg and launch quick counters, racking up points and possibly putting Ronda into a defensive frame of mind.

For all her success in the cage, we’ve never once seen Rousey deal with a fighter engaging from distance. No one has forced her to, instead accepting Rousey’s rules and all but inviting themselves into her clinch.

Holm’s coach, Greg Jackson, is one of the most tactical thinkers in MMA. He would have her steeled to fight that instinct. Holm, despite her boxing pedigree, does her best work from further out. Her legs are long and fast enough to fire off front and side kicks to the ribs to slow down the champ’s forward momentum or to feint and capitalize on her opponent’s response.

The keys for Holm, and ultimately for every striker looking to challenge Rousey, will be her ability to avoid the clinch and to survive when she is put on her back, something that seems likely to happen several times over the course of a 25-minute title fight.

Holm has been surprisingly adept in this area, using strong counter wrestling to escape danger. She’s big and very strong. In the fight game, all too often, that’s enough to get the job done.

When she’s threatened she doesn’t just defend the takedown—she angles out to remove herself from the situation as soon as possible. Her ground game remains a bit of a mystery. When she does hit the mat, Holm’s strategy is focused on getting up rather than playing jiu-jitsu on the ground.

That we don’t know much about her matwork, despite it being the obvious route to victory against her, is a huge compliment to both Holm and her coaches. A smart fighter minimizes their weaknesses. It’s that kind of fight IQ that would give Holm a fighting chance against Rousey.

There’s no question, should the two fight, that Holm would go into the fight as a significant underdog. And rightfully so. Rousey’s reputation is well deserved and she’s proved her mettle under fire. But Holm, at the very least, would have a blueprint in place for success. She’d have a chance, if only a slim one.

Against Ronda Rousey, that’s the highest of compliments.

Jonathan Snowden covers combat sports for Bleacher Report.

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Miesha Tate vs. Ronda Rousey 3: Proof UFC Has a Women’s MMA Problem

Miesha Tate (17-5) was supposed to be a finished product. Now in her eighth year as a professional, the book on the 28-year-old Tate had been written long ago—good grappler, enthusiastic but awful striker. In the still-developing world of women’s…

Last Saturday against Jessica Eye, however, Tate took a match to the book and lit it aflame, several shockingly powerful overhand rights announcing to the world that a new Miesha Tate was being constructed at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas.

“I felt like first 30 seconds, I had to adjust. I sat into my striking and turned my takedowns into an overhand right. I’m going to need that against Ronda,” Tate told Fox Sports 1’s Karen Bryant after the fight. “I finally showed that I have power in my hands. I’m doing things to make me better. I have some of the best grappling in the division, and now I have power in my striking.”

The unanimous-decision win, Tate’s fourth in a row, was enough to earn a third opportunity against The Queen of MMA Ronda Rousey.

“She’s fought her way back to Ronda,” UFC President Dana White said after the bout. “Jessica was shredding her in the first round and she walked through her and made it a fight. She looked awesome. I’m in awe how tough she is.”

It was a huge victory for Tate—and the sign of monumental problems for the sport of women’s MMA. As the most dominant champion in the sport, Rousey is expected to run through an overmatched Bethe Correia at UFC 190 on Saturday, much as she’s run through Tate twice in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

A rubber match is a beautiful thing when two fighters have split their previous bouts. But when one fighter has wiped the floor with the other on two separate occasions? Then it becomes a difficult proposition to sell to an increasingly sophisticated and discerning fanbase.

The sad truth is that despite a lack of interest in a Tate-versus-Rousey trilogy, it’s the best women’s bantamweight fight the UFC has to offer—and a problem they’ve created for themselves by all but ignoring women’s MMA. UFC, for all the progress made and the courage shown bringing women into the fold, still doesn’t seem fully committed to the experiment.

The promotion, quite obviously, is fully invested in the Ronda Rousey business. Women’s MMA, generally, hasn’t gotten the same love. According to Bleacher Report’s research, fewer than 10 percent of all UFC fights so far in 2015 have featured women, making both women’s bantamweight and the new strawweight division the least active divisions in the sport.

Grand total, there have been 14 fights in the bantamweight division and just 27 women’s bouts overall. If all weight classes were given equal time, that number would shoot up to 59 women’s fights. Worse, more than 40 percent of those fights have appeared on UFC’s Fight Pass in front of a comparatively small audience of mostly hardcore fans willing to pay $9.99 a month for a collection of classic bouts and opening matches from each card.

The UFC simply doesn’t treat male fighters this way. The heavyweights, though often relegated to the undercard, are featured in the main or co-main event regularly, six times this year alone. Only the similarly disrespected flyweight class can compare. Like the women, that weight class is also having a hard time building stars. The problem, as shown here, has less to do with the fighters than it does with the institution—it’s systemic, whether by design or not.

This is no way to build a sport. The UFC has a once-in-a-lifetime talent in Rousey. They’ve done an amazing job nurturing her abilities and building her brand. But somewhere along the way, they forgot that no one gets into the cage alone. Rousey needs a dancing partner to continue to create her legend—and the UFC is failing her by letting the bantamweight division fall to pieces around her.

Want to find the next Rousey? She won’t be the woman flailing away on Fight Pass or sitting at home waiting for a call. She’ll be the athlete fans have watched all along, promoted up and down the card in compelling bouts. For that to happen, the UFC has to book more women’s fights. Nine cards this year, in fact, didn’t include a single fight between women.

That has to change.

Inserting women into the UFC instead of side-draining them into a separate-but-equal promotion of their own was a stroke of genius. Now it’s time for White and the UFC to reap the rewards of their own bravery.

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