With her recovery from knee surgery weeks ahead of schedule, UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is hoping for a Jan. 3 return at UFC 182. Her opponent is yet to be determined, but Rousey sounds like she’d even be open to a catchweight bout with Gina Carano.
“She’s been the one insisting on fighting at 135, so yeah, I would love to fight her at 135,” Rousey told Bloodyelbow.com in Macao. “I prefer that, definitely. I feel like there’s where I’m at my athletic peak.”
Revealing she steps into the Octagon weighing roughly 148 pounds, Rousey scored a 49-second armbar finish over Charmaine Tweet in a 150 pound catchweight back in 2011. Reaffirming the stylistic issues Carano presents, Rousey is convinced the former ‘American Gladiator’ still has her most dangerous weapon: her strength.
“I think Gina is the worst style match up for me actually,” said Rousey. “One of the reasons why I’ve been so excited to fight her, was because she has that feeling of distance, and that feeling of timing, and mobility to put those touches in her punches where she has that one punch knockout power.
“There’s a lot of other girls that they’re strong, but they don’t have that feeling. So they overwhelm people and they only get TKOs. There’s none of that one punch knockout power, and that’s the kind of thing that you don’t lose. It’s that kind of thing that stays with you even if you take time off. I think styles do make fights, and style wise, Gina is the absolute worst match up for me. That’s why I’ve been wanting to fight her for a while, because she could be one of my biggest challenges.”
Rousey received plenty of challenges from the premier female competitors in women’s jiu jitsu after claiming she would ‘beat any BJJ girl in the world, gi or no-gi, any weight division, black belt all the way in any rule setting.’ Just don’t hold your breath hoping for Rousey to compete at Metamoris. It doesn’t sound like the upstart professional grappling promotion can afford her.
“If people want to pay me as much as what I get paid in the UFC to go roll with them, I’d go do that too!” said Rousey. “But I’ve got movies, I’ve got fights, and I just don’t have the time to put in a grappling training camp. They’re only upset because they think they can beat me, so why shouldn’t I be just as upset at their opinion thinking they could beat me? Why are they so much more entitled to their opinion than mine?”
5 MUST-READ STORIES
Mean Green. Bobby Green alleges Donald Cerrone made racist remarks around him and groped female fans at the UFC Fan Expo. ‘He was groping every woman in his line to do his signing,” Green said. “He’s groping these women. They’ve got husbands, they’ve got fiancees, they’ve got boyfriends, I’m like, that’s messed up man, just because this guy’s a nerd and he can’t do anything to you, you’re going to do this to him.’
On the mend. Luke Rockhold revealed Monday that he tore his meniscus four weeks prior to his April win over Tim Boetsch and underwent surgery to repair the damage three weeks ago. ‘I’m maybe a week to 2-3 weeks away from being 100-percent with the knee. I think a December return would be ideal.’
Fortunes changes for five. Dave Meltzer explains how Michael Bisping, Benson Henderson, Thales Leites, Tyron Woodley and Jordan Mein move forward following this past weekend’s UFC events in Macao and Oklahoma.
‘I thought for sure I was going to die.’ Joe Riggs explains how he accidentally shot himself.
‘Overstepped his bounds.’ Kevin Iole believes UFC president Dana White crossed the line as a promoter and never should have interfered with the officiating of an event. ‘This, though, was a decision that should have been booed, and loudly, even if one believes that Hughes clearly blew both of the first two bouts.’
Check out The MMA Hour with Luke Rockhold, Rory MacDonald, Bobby Green, Joe Riggs, Ben Saunders, Michelle Waterson and Will Brooks.
MEDIA STEW
UFC 177 Embedded: episode 1.
Highlights from RFA 17 and Cage Warriors 71.
Quick preview of Shinya Aoki vs Kamal Shalorus.
TTTHS.
Bas Rutten’s second fight with Frank Shamrock.
Mirko Cro Cop vs. Satoshi Ishii at Inoki Genome Fight 2.
Long watches.
Countdown to UFC 177: Castillo vs Ferguson
…
Knuckle Up #403: a Macau/Tulsa Take, Bitter/Spite-Fueled + a Rueful Rollins Rip
TWEETS
Oh.
racist….. Ha. This is funny
— Cowboy Cerrone (@Cowboycerrone) August 25, 2014
“@chalkalaka: @Cowboycerrone you really grab dudes girls ass and say you’d knock him out?” Ha come on now!
— Cowboy Cerrone (@Cowboycerrone) August 25, 2014
What’s wrong with bob the queen green!!
— STORMIN NORMAN PARKE (@norman_parke) August 25, 2014
Since my name got thrown out. I remember a lot of banter between green and Donald lots of stabs going back and forth. As to racism never
— ike vallie-flagg (@IKEVF) August 25, 2014
Heard anything! My father is African American and if racist slurs were thrown around I would have said something personally
— ike vallie-flagg (@IKEVF) August 25, 2014
Yikes.
Just filthy training today akahq. How else do u train for a fight? U fight. Getting ready. The grind… http://t.co/MiXgrsGjv1
— Daniel Cormier (@dc_mma) August 25, 2014
Here he goes.
OK.
Just to make one thing clear about @scottsheeley decision making . I said do not stop this fight & I’m going out on my shield! @poker_pass
— Cung Le (@CungLe185) August 25, 2014
Good stuff.
Video of @mattgricemma journey. 2014 Courage Award Winner – Matt Grice – INTEGRIS Health https://t.co/eMgRExLyEn
— Matt Grice (@mattgricemma) August 25, 2014
Old video of an early Mma fight of mine when I was a kid http://t.co/Rc7tyYoFWo and we had bowed, henced, started lol.
— michael (@bisping) August 26, 2014
Without fail.
Happy Birthday Danimal. I love you:) @lastcall155 pic.twitter.com/nnlLKZZYao
— Joseph Benavidez (@JoeJitsu) August 26, 2014
Felice bringing the creepy.
Love it.
OFFICIAL MAYHEM MILLER PRESS RELEASE VIDEO. SEND DONATIONS TO PAYPAL [email protected] http://t.co/lt7mlCPrym
— mayhem (@mayhemmiller) August 26, 2014
FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS
Announced yesterday (Aug. 25 2014)
NA
FANPOST OF THE DAY
Today’s Fanpost of the Day comes via Newfie_in_Spain.
Considering looking into the viability of starting a MMA organization in Madrid.
When I first moved to Madrid a year ago I had the impression that the sport of MMA had not yet caught on here, but over the course of the past year that opinion has started to change. Admittedly I was only basing my original impression by how much I saw in the way of mma clothing availability and how little I saw anyone wearing anything remotely related to the sport. But since last year I’ve noticed more and more retailers selling mma brand clothing and much more of it on he street just over he course of a year. On top of that I joined a gym for kickboxing lessons and learned there may be more people watching and interested in mma than I had originally suspected.
So I started wondering today, as the title foretells, how would a fledgling mma organization do if I tried starting one up in the city? I know there would be a lot of work involved, and I admittedly have never attempted anything like this before. Is it even possible for someone with no business training or degree to get something like this up and running? I’d certainly like to find out, I’ve been a fan for many years and I would love to help grow the sport here.
…
Check out the rest of the post here.
Found something you’d like to see in the Morning Report? Just hit me up on Twitter @SaintMMA and we’ll include it in tomorrow’s column.