Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was knocked clean out at the UFC 193 pay-per-view (PPV) event last November, thanks to a sensational performance from undefeated boxing import Holly Holm.
After the “Rowdy” upset, the mixed martial arts (MMA) community went after coach Edmond Tarverdyan, the brains behind the Olympian’s brawn. Sure, it was the first loss they ever suffered after pairing up for a career in combat sports, but comments like this weren’t doing him any favors.
Tarverdyan responds to ESPN.com:
“It was the biggest loss of my career. You know you won’t ever want that to happen again. So what that means is, I’ve got to work harder. Every little thing I’ve got to be honest with and make sure that we’re ready to go. Yeah there was a lot of criticism afterwards about adding a boxing coach. MMA is not a boxing game, but Ronda got caught, and we will be taking advice from boxing trainers. We’re not going to sit here and change everything that we’ve done, we’ve done stuff that I think is working, it’s been great. We’re not going to have something so much different for Ronda. Have we been doing everything wrong? No, that’s not the situation. It’s a fight, Ronda got caught with a shot, and it was a little bit of a roller coaster from there.”
As for a potential rematch?
As Tarverdyan explains in the video above, Rousey will take some time off in 2016 to recharge her batteries and fulfill her commitments outside of the Octagon — something she already warned us would happen prior to her showdown against “The Preacher’s Daughter.”
More from ESPN:
“Ronda did three fights last year. I think she deserves time off. That’s what [UFC president] Dana [White] said, too. So we’ve spoke about that. You know Dana judges things very fairly, and he completely understood. If you watch her career, she was fighting back-to-back. Even her amateur fights, she took a lot of fights back-to-back. Of course, she got [quick] finishes, but it’s not only about the ring time, it’s about the training. She’s trained very hard to give it 100 percent every day, so you know, that’s hard for the body. Ronda has been through a lot. She’s had knee surgeries … and we don’t want to end up with the same thing, having another knee surgery, so we need to relax a little bit, take our time and get her in better shape slowly and mentally and physically.”
I also heard Dana White say he would lose his promoter’s license if Rousey didn’t fight Holm at UFC 200, but that’s none of my business.
For now, the 135-pound title will be defended at the newly-branded UFC 196 PPV, as Holm welcomes longtime contender and B-movie buddy Miesha Tate into the championship arena (again). After that? Hopefully “Rowdy” will be ready to go by year’s end.