The dominant Ronda Rousey will put her unbeaten record on the line once again in a women’s bantamweight title fight unlike any other, facing fellow unbeaten Bethe Correia in Saturday night’s UFC 190 main event from Rio de Janeiro.
The 28-year-old American has climbed the ranks from her 2008 Olympic judo gold medal into the most daunting fighter in mixed martial arts, male or female, submitting opponents in mere seconds with a fight average of just two minutes and 16 seconds. Rousey has been painted as an untouchable force, and perhaps rightfully so as she embarks on a de facto away game to Correia‘s homeland Brazil.
Unlike most of her other tests, however, the 32-year-old Correia has convincingly proved herself with an unbeaten record of 9-0, and she’s talking big game as she gets ready for her date in the Octagon with one of the world’s most recognizable fighters.
Let’s look closer into Saturday’s main event.
UFC 190: Rousey vs. Correia
Date: Saturday, August 1
Time (ET): 10 p.m.
Watch: Pay-per-view
Odds (per Odds Shark): Rousey 1-16, Correia 8-1
Pre-Fight Hype
The Rousey hype machine has gained considerable steam during moments of the last few years, but it’s never been rolling along faster than it is entering Saturday’s spectacle.
Fellow bantamweight fighters aren’t the only ones conceding their inferiority to the mean brawler with a game face that imposes fear and submission moves that make bones quiver. There’s been no shortage of notables weighing in on her presence, including NBA superstar LeBron James saying he felt intimidated to meet her at the ESPYs and that he’d last in the Octagon with her “as long as she wanted.”
Even the UFC’s most feared men’s fighter, Conor McGregor, isn’t entertaining the idea of grappling with Rousey, telling SI Now, “I thought if this lady was to get a hold of me, she would throw me on my head in literally one second flat.”
However, don’t count Correia among those buying into the hype.
Carrying her own unbeaten record into this contest, Correia is 9-0 for her career and has three wins in as many tries since joining the UFC. She’s a heavy boxer with enough skill to stuff Rousey‘s early attempts at submission.
There’s been a big war of words between the two fighters, as one would suspect, but it’s even been turned up a few notches as Rousey sounds more amped than ever, as Sean Ross Sapp of WrestlingInc.com noted:
That’s a big change from Rousey‘s previous fights, which saw her dispatch her opponent so quickly that a quick bathroom break would have forced one to miss the entire fight. She’s been in the Octagon all of 30 seconds in her last two fights combined, and just over two minutes for her last four.
The short fights, Rousey says, are when she “likes” you, but she told TMZ there’s no such plans for this one—in fact, the exact opposite:
If I beat you quickly, that’s me at my nicest and most merciful. That means you get to go home unscathed with a paycheck. If I make the fight last longer, that means I don’t like you and I want you to go home looking different than the way you walked in. And I don’t like this chick.
Correia‘s ultraconfident demeanor and way with piercing words through the public may be central to Rousey‘s disdain, but it’s a lot more personal than just that. Comments made by Correia in the media about suicide to Combate got Rousey even more invested in beating her opponent, she told Fox Sports:
It’s very likely to be a different sort of fight than we’re used to seeing from Rousey. Never one to have a lack of intensity, she figures to be as energized and ticked off as we’ve ever seen her in the Octagon.
On top of that, only one of her career fights went longer than one round—the three-round slugfest with Miesha Tate in 2013 that was stopped by Rousey‘s arm bar. That result, along with many others, just goes to show that more than five minutes in the Octagon with Rousey is simply too much to handle.
She may not be an expert boxer—that’s one area where Correia can close the gap—but Rousey is so superior a fighter from top to bottom that her strength will overpower Correia. This is a true mismatch that, in many instances, wouldn’t take longer than a minute or two to end.
But with different circumstances and a different mindset from Rousey, she looks intent on getting into the second round for just the second time in her career. That won’t change the fact that she’ll end the fight on her accord.
Prediction: Rousey wins via Round 2 submission
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