The talent gap between UFC women’s bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey, and the rest of the division is huge. Her last two fights only lasted 30 seconds as she destroyed the top fighter the weight class had to offer.
Kenny Florian recently tweeted his thoughts on the division:
Looking at the entire 27-fighter women’s bantamweight roster, there is no one on that list who can give Rousey a tough challenge. The only time Rousey went past the first round was in her second fight against Miesha Tate. Otherwise, the division basically looks like a “Ronda Rousey armbar clinic,” according to Josh Hart of Scout.com.
There aren’t really many fights to be made that would potentially cause a huge landscape shift. No. 3 Alexis Davis finally defeated No. 6 Sarah Kaufman in their third fight at UFC 186. Sure, it may keep her in the picture for a title shot, but it is hard to imagine that fans would be excited to see that match after her 16-second drubbing at UFC 175.
No. 2 Miesha Tate will face off against No. 5 Jessica “Evil” Eye in Chicago this July. While Eye is another fighter slated for a title shot. If she does get past Tate, it is highly doubtful that she will fare any better than Rousey‘s previous challengers.
If Tate wins, will there be any hyped-up interest to see her face Rousey for a third time? Not likely. Despite Tate giving the champ a tougher challenge the second time around, she faced the same armbar fate, similar to their first matchup.
There aren’t any potential prospects coming up through the ranks to challenge Rousey for the crown. Hart mentioned Larissa Pacheco in his article, but she received a thumping at the hands of “The Iron Lady” Germaine de Randamie during the UFC 185 prelims.
Rousey faces off against Bethe Correia at UFC 190 in Brazil this August. The fight creates an interesting narrative, in that Correia has been verbally attacking Rousey and made it personal, according to Shaun Al-Shatti of MMAFighting.com. Other than that, Rousey should be a huge favorite to defeat Correia.
The fix to this problem is fairly obvious: a Rousey/Cris “Cyborg” Justino matchup. The war of words is already there which is key to creating a successful narrative. Cyborg is also a dominant fighter herself as she is basically on a 13-win fight streak (of course, the asterisk is there due to her testing positive for PEDs). This is a fight that the fans want to see. There really is nothing else for Rousey in the current state of the women’s bantamweight division.
Rousey put the ball in Cyborg’s court when she stated on The Howard Stern Show that “she isn’t going to do backflips for a cheating con artist.” (h/t MMAJunkie.com’s Matt Erickson)
Until Cyborg can prove she can drop to 135, UFC fans will have to endure a weak women’s bantamweight division. Hopefully, fans won’t have to endure a Mayweather/Pacquiao-length wait. But when the time comes for that fight to happen, fans will get what they bargained for.
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