Ronda Rousey is back.
UFC President Dana White made it official on Wednesday, telling Fox Sports radio’s Colin Cowherd that Rousey will return at UFC 207 on December 30 to fight Amanda Nunes for the women’s bantamweight title.
While not necessarily a bombshell—White’s appearance merely confirmed an earlier report by MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani—this qualifies as some of the biggest fight-related news of the year. Rousey has been absent for nearly 11 months after losing her 135-pound championship to Holly Holm at UFC 193.
There was some worry she might never fight again.
Getting Rousey back in action before the end of 2016 will not only put an end to rumors about her fighting future, it will also further bolster an already stellar year on pay-per-view for the UFC.
But what should fans expect from Rousey? After her aura of invincibility was shattered by Holm’s shocking second-round knockout, can she once again become one of the UFC’s biggest stars and most dominant athletes?
Here, Bleacher Report’s Chad Dundas and Patrick Wyman give their initial reactions to the news that Rousey is officially coming back.
Chad Dundas: Rousey’s return is big news, if not exactly a huge surprise within the MMA industry. Conventional wisdom has always said she would make her way back to the Octagon eventually and that when she did her first fight would likely be for the title. Only the specifics were marked To Be Determined.
That said, Rousey had been missing in action for so long after dropping her championship to Holm that some slivers of doubt had started to creep in.
The former women’s bantamweight titlist took her first professional loss about as hard as anyone we’ve ever seen before. She essentially dropped off the map, virtually unseen and unheard from since November 2015. In the interim, she has faced pointed criticism of not only herself, but of her coach Edmond Tarverdyan and of her fledgling romantic relationship with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne.
As a result, her return figures to be one of the more scrutinized homecomings in fight-company history. We’ll all want to see how she’s dealt with the demons of that defeat to Holm and whether she can just jump straight back into the business of being one of the UFC’s biggest stars.
I, for one, think it’s going to be fascinating.
Patrick, what do you think we should expect from Ronda Rousey Verison 2.0?
Patrick Wyman: You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that we’ve never seen anybody take a loss that hard before. In hindsight, it seems obvious that her commitment to swagger and braggadocio masked some deep insecurities that the Holm loss cracked wide-open, but even so, this was an extreme response.
While I’m totally on board for her return and can’t wait to see how this all plays out, I’m not feeling great about her chances.
Confidence is the key to effective fighting. The venerable Rafael Cordeiro, who has trained more champions in his two decades in MMA than just about anybody else (most recently Fabricio Werdum and Rafael Dos Anjos), has built his entire coaching philosophy around stoking and hardening a fighter’s self-belief. I interviewed the Greg Jackson-trained Landon Vannata in July, and it’s remarkable how many times the word “confident” appears in his self-descriptions. That’s a hallmark of the Albuquerque, New Mexico, super-coach’s style, and it’s not a coincidence.
So what happens when a fighter’s confidence cracks this badly? We don’t really have the answer to that.
Speaking of confidence, I don’t know how we could have any in Tarverdyan, who was last seen in the Octagon screaming ineffectual obscenities at Travis Browne and eating a push kick from Fabricio Werdum when he ran his mouth. Is that guy—that guy—really capable of fixing the obvious, deep problems that Rousey showed in her last fight?
All of this is leaving aside the fact that a new crop of elite bantamweights has emerged in Rousey’s absence. Amanda Nunes isn’t Bethe Correia; she’s far, far more dangerous, and Rousey will enjoy eating her punches even less than she liked Holm’s.
Chad, do you think Rousey and her team can fix these issues? And how do you see Rousey and Nunes matching up?
Chad: I think you’re justified in being skeptical.
We have no reason to believe that Tarverdyan can fix Rousey’s deficiencies. Frankly, we have no reason to believe he could change a tire on her car, let alone turn her into a world-class striker in the time she has left in her athletic life.
The only thing I would offer as a counter argument is that he might not have to.
Rousey was comically dominant through the first six fights of her UFC career, relying almost entirely on her preternatural judo skills and aggressive submission game. I don’t think I’m letting the cat out of the bag here to suggest that if she can retain full confidence in anything, it will be in her grappling.
I also feel comfortable saying the success or failure of this comeback will depend largely on her playing to those strengths. Rousey’s grappling and submission skills were good enough to keep the rest of the best women’s bantamweights choking on her dust for nearly three years before Holm came along. Longer than that, really, if you count her Strikeforce days.
I think she can be at least that good again. I would echo the sentiments of fellow Bleacher Report lead writer Jonathan Snowden on this one:
But I’m not the technical analyst you are, Patrick, not even close, so you’ll have to bear with me here: My gut gives Rousey an even-money chance of being able to take Nunes down and submit her. Why? Because she’s Ronda Stinkin’ Rousey, I guess.
Largely, though, Rousey’s future may also depend on what kind of fight schedule she intends to keep and the sorts of opponents she will entertain. Will she go back to full-time duty and—if she succeeds in winning the title—take on all comers? Or will matchmakers massage her into a few big-money matchups before she leaves MMA again, likely for Hollywood and this time for good?
If it’s the former, I don’t necessarily like her chances to win another half-dozen consecutive fights. But if it’s the latter? I could see the rest of Rousey’s career going something like: a title fight with Nunes, a third match with Miesha Tate, a rematch with Holm, a superfight with Cris “Cyborg” Justino—and then retirement.
What do you think, Patrick? Am I being too bullish? And will the public at large still be as interested in Ronda Rousey, UFC Superstar™ as it was before? Or did seeing her lose to Holm shatter her ability to appeal to the masses?
Patrick: You raise a good point here about Rousey’s confidence in her skills on the mat. If she can get Nunes down, there should be no doubt that the former champion is capable of finishing the fight in quick, efficient fashion.
The problem will be getting it there.
More specifically, the issue will be covering the distance in order to get into the clinch and work takedowns without eating the kinds of shots that Rousey did against Holm. For all her boxing experience, Holm has never been much of a puncher, but Rousey literally ran face-first into her punches. We saw what effect that had on her.
Nunes, by contrast, is the hardest puncher Rousey could potentially face outside of Cyborg. She doesn’t have the sheer size, command of distance or the footwork that Holm possesses, but she also doesn’t need to get Rousey to walk into her shots to create the kinds of impact that could fell a sturdy oak. Moreover, unlike most of Rousey’s prior competition, Nunes has the speed, explosiveness and physical gifts to compete athletically with Rousey.
So that’s Rousey’s dilemma: Can she cut off the cage instead of chasing, as she did against Holm, get into the clinch and work takedowns without taking a prohibitive amount of damage on the way in?
If I had to make a pick, I’d take Rousey. I think it’ll be bloody, though, and I’ll go a step further and say we’ll be left with just as many questions about Rousey as we had beforehand.
As to the second part of your question, Chad, this is where it gets really intriguing.
Rousey is one of the two biggest stars the UFC has ever produced. For a few weeks in 2015, she was even legitimately bigger than the UFC, if you believe that Google search trends are a good metric of that kind of thing. But will the general public still be as intrigued now that the veil of invincibility has crumbled?
No, I don’t think you’re being too bullish about the potential interest in Rousey’s return.
Everybody, but especially mainstream media outlets that need to fill softball five-minute segments like Today or The Ellen Degeneres Show, loves a redemption story. That’s exactly what a skilled narrative-builder like Rousey can offer between now and a fight with Nunes, and millions of people will eat it up.
If Rousey loses again, all bets are off, though she’d still probably be able to pull a cool 500,000 pay-per-view buys against a lukewarm body. If she wins, though? The Holm fight was just a blip, and the UFC can ready itself to receive dump trucks full of cash from a star-struck public.
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