If Laila Ali needs a grappling lesson, Ronda Rousey is “around.”
The UFC women’s bantamweight champ recently found herself in the crosshairs of the daughter of boxing great, Muhammad Ali, during an encounter with TMZ cameras in Los Angeles.
Ali, a former women’s boxing world champion, was asked to compare herself to Rousey. Initially, the question was brushed aside with the whole ‘MMA is apples and boxing is oranges’ debate. But something stirred within Ali, possibly remnants of the alpha female from her boxing past, causing her to blurt out an answer.
“No woman in the world can beat me. Period,” said Ali to TMZ Sports. “…She’s too much smaller than me anyways. She’s like the size of my daughter. My 3-year-old.”
In the streets, them’s fighting words.
Rousey, who is still picking her teeth with Cat Zingano’s humerus, responded to Ali’s comments when speaking with The Daily Beast:
“If she wants to take me up on that, I’m around. She’s retired and has several kids. I understand why she’d think that because she has a size advantage, but if you saw my last fight it had nothing to do with size or strength at all. That’s not how I beat people. So you can’t count having a size and strength advantage as having a real advantage against me.”
Ali, who turned 37 in December, is widely recognized as one of the greatest women’s boxers of all time. She retired in 2007 with a professional record of 24-0, with 21 of those wins coming by knockout.
Meanwhile, Rousey is on a quest to take the throne as the greatest women’s combat athlete ever. UFC President Dana White has already gone on record in comparing her to boxing legend “Iron” Mike Tyson. It’s hard to disagree with him, seeing as she runs through opponents like a McDonald’s drive-thru.
All 11 of Rousey’s professional fights combined have yet to even reach the 25-minute mark. Her last four title defenses lasted a total of two minutes and 34 seconds.
Ali was a dangerous boxer in her prime, but many would agree the age-old boxer vs. MMA fighter debate was ended nearly five years ago when Randy Couture dominated James Toney. This truly is an apples-and- oranges debate, and there is no comparing the two sports.
Size obviously doesn’t matter, as we’ve seen Rousey dump grown men on their heads on more than one occasion. Ali has already shot down fight rumors on Twitter, reminding the world that she’s retired.
Given the ruinous state of the women’s bantamweight division, this proposed circus fight could be quite appealing.
Jordy McElroy is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. He is also the MMA writer for Rocktagon and FanRag Sports.
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