Ronda Rousey is unlike anyone else in sports today.
Sometimes LeBron James misses his free throws—like he did yesterday against the Houston Rockets. Mike Trout doesn’t hit a home run every time he steps to the plate. Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal haven’t pulled off the Grand Slam and probably never will.
Even the best have a bad day at the office sometimes. It happens.
It doesn’t happen to Rousey, though. By her standards, a bad day at the office meant winning in the third round instead of the first.
Sure, there have been fleeting moments in which Rousey‘s aura of invincibility was nearly destroyed. But in the end, she won and won decisively. Her victory over Cat Zingano at UFC 184 might be her most impressive yet.
Rousey made no secret of the challenge she expected to face from Zingano.
Some of her comments were probably the usual pre-fight puffery, but there’s no question Zingano appeared to be a game challenger, potentially capable of dragging the fight into uncharted territory for Rousey.
Instead, Rousey won in 14 seconds with an armbar, which tied a UFC record:
As MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz joked, it’s like Rousey is doing her best to ensure her fights are as easily accessible on social media as possible:
Some—especially those who paid $60 to watch UFC 184—might feel like it’s becoming boring and a waste of money to see Rousey fight. After all, a human can only pull off so many variations of the armbar. Where’s the suspense and excitement any more?
That viewpoint fails to properly do justice to Rousey. No other professional athlete is currently more guaranteed to deliver than her, and she’s making the toughest challengers in the world look like scrubs.
Zingano was 9-0 with five knockouts and three submissions before meeting Rousey. Alexis Davis and Sara McMann were also decorated fighters, but between the three, they lasted a combined 96 seconds in the Octagon.
It’s almost gotten to the point where UFC fans should count the seconds it takes Rousey to dispatch her opponent, Baron Corbin-style.
I’m certainly not the first to draw the parallel to Mike Tyson, but it’s the closest comparison you could make for Rousey. When Tyson was at his best in the late 1980s, he was a force of nature. The six fights before his loss to Buster Douglas all ended in knockouts, and none of them went past the seventh round.
When Rousey steps into the Octagon, you know something crazy is going to happen, and a ruined arm will be left in her wake. Every pay-per-view she’s on is a spectacle.
It’s tough to truly appreciate greatness in its own time. Years add perspective and an ability to fully analyze just how good an athlete was.
This kind of dominance by Rousey isn’t common, and every second of it should be truly appreciated.
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