(Yeah, I actually prefer this analysis.)
With each successive Ronda Rousey performance, it becomes increasingly difficult to picture any future opponent of hers lasting over a minute, let alone a round, with the “Rowdy” one. She outgrapples wrestlers, pancakes strikers, and submits everyone in between without breaking a sweat, and it’s been like this her entire career — nine of the woman’s twelve professional fights can be captured in a single gif, for Christ’s sake.
Enter Cat Zingano, a hulking physical specimen and tough-as-nails fighter that many of us believed would be the one to push Rousey further than anyone before when they collided at UFC 184. Unfortunately for us (and Zingano), she actually wound up on the wrong side of the shortest title fight in UFC history: a 14-second armbar defeat.
Personally, I chalked the loss up to Zingano simply being overwhelmed by the moment and throwing any strategy she had planned out the door. In an interview with ESPN published yesterday, however, “Alpha” made the mind-blowing revelation that her performance was only hindered by the fact that she didn’t expect Ronda Rousey — Judo master, nine-wins-by-armbar Ronda Rousey — to go for her arm.
I stand by my decision. Throughout the week, every time I saw Ronda we would shake hands and she would say, ‘Come on, let’s do this. Let’s put on an epic fight.’ I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to talk to her. I don’t want to be friends with her. At some point, I’m planning on being on top of this girl and I don’t want to care what I’m doing to her.’
She kept saying things like that so I said, ‘OK, let’s do this.’ What better way to put on an epic fight than a flying knee? I expected us to continue to fight. I didn’t realize we were going to do a jiu-jitsu match where I’m flying at her and all of a sudden she’s going for my arm again. I guess that’s one disappointment I had. If I had known she was going to be going for my arms, I would have gone about it differently. I agreed to her kind of fight instead of my kind of fight, and that won’t happen again.
Well, that is just….wow.
Look, I have the utmost respect for what Ms. Zingano has achieved thus far in her MMA career — especially in light of the absolute hell she has gone through over the past couple years — but those words that she spoke out of her mouthhole are bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. If Zingano is to be believed, she not only:
1.) Let her opponent’s request dictate how she approached the fight, but
2.) Forgot that Jiu-Jitsu is one of the many disciplines of MMA, and
3.) Didn’t expect a lifelong armbar specialist to go for an armbar when presented with a golden opportunity.
I don’t even know what to say to that. Fighting Ronda Rousey without expecting the armbar is like fighting Cody McKenzie and not expecting the guillotine and/or getting a paper cut from the tags still hanging off his basketball shorts.
And to think, this is only the *second* most insane thing that an opponent of Rousey’s has said this week.
The post WTF?! Quote of the Day: Cat Zingano “Didn’t Expect” That Ronda Rousey Would “Go for Her Arm” at UFC 184 appeared first on Cagepotato.