If Ronda Rousey is upset about Jon Jones hating on her push from the UFC, she must be taking her aggression out in training camp.
Or at least that’s what Edmond Tarverdyan, Rousey‘s coach, told Fight Hub TV in a recent interview. According to Tarverdyan, Rousey‘s UFC 170 opponnent Sara McMann isn’t ready for the pain “Rowdy” Rousey will be bringing come fight night.
If you have Olympic silver medalists, reigning world amateur champions…saying something like that about you, that means this girl can box. I’m not going to give out what she’s going to do, but I’ll be honest. We get boxing world champions in here, girls, and she drops all of them with body shots, too. So if you’re dropping people with 14-ounce gloves, you guys should be seeing that.
Rousey may have improved her striking over the course of her career, but is anyone outside of the Rousey camp seriously believing this? Rousey‘s last opponent, Miesha Tate, was able to land some good shots in their clash at UFC 168, and Tate is hardly a competent striker in MMA, let alone boxing.
Despite his ludicrous claims, Taverdyan believes Rousey will finish McMann by knockout at UFC 170—after Rousey outwrestles an Olympic silver medalist in freestyle wrestling.
His belief is that Rousey will have worked on her defensive flaws from the Tate fight and become a world-class striker in a little under two months. Rousey fought Tate on Dec. 28 and will be competing Feb. 22 at UFC 170. That’s hardly enough time for a fighter to recover and get quality training in, let alone improve one aspect of their game by such a wide margin.
Perhaps Rousey will come into this contest with a more calculated approach given that she doesn’t hate McMann like she did with Tate, but I don’t think anyone is going to be labeling Rousey as a world-class striker anytime soon.
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