(Sometimes these things happen in MMA. RouseyGifProps: Fightlinker)
Ronda Rousey (3-0) — the badass Cali chick and Judo champ who has submitted her three professional opponents in a combined 99 seconds — will make her next appearance at a November Strikeforce event, likely a Challengers card in Las Vegas. Rousey last competed three weeks ago, earning a somewhat controversial technical submission win over Sarah D’Alelio. During the fight, Rousey shouted at referee Steve Mazzagatti that D’Alelio had verbally tapped from an armbar, while D’Alelio claims that she was only screaming in agony.
Rousey will be facing Canadian striker Julia Budd (2-1), who most recently outpointed Germaine de Randamie at Strikeforce Challengers 16, but is perhaps more famous for getting dummied by Amanda Nunes. No other bouts for Strikeforce’s November card have been announced yet.
(Sometimes these things happen in MMA. RouseyGifProps: Fightlinker)
Ronda Rousey (3-0) — the badass Cali chick and Judo champ who has submitted her three professional opponents in a combined 99 seconds — will make her next appearance at a November Strikeforce event, likely a Challengers card in Las Vegas. Rousey last competed three weeks ago, earning a somewhat controversial technical submission win over Sarah D’Alelio. During the fight, Rousey shouted at referee Steve Mazzagatti that D’Alelio had verbally tapped from an armbar, while D’Alelio claims that she was only screaming in agony.
Rousey will be facing Canadian striker Julia Budd (2-1), who most recently outpointed Germaine de Randamie at Strikeforce Challengers 16, but is perhaps more famous for getting dummied by Amanda Nunes. No other bouts for Strikeforce’s November card have been announced yet.
Filed under: Strikeforce, NewsJust two weeks after notching a win in her Strikeforce debut, exciting newcomer Ronda Rousey has already committed to her follow-up bout.
The former U.S. judo Olympian has agreed to face striker Julia Budd in a November …
Just two weeks after notching a win in her Strikeforce debut, exciting newcomer Ronda Rousey has already committed to her follow-up bout.
The former U.S. judo Olympian has agreed to face striker Julia Budd in a November event. Strikeforce confirmed that both featherweight fighters have agreed to the bout, but did not disclose a date or location for the show, which has yet to be officially announced.
Rousey made her major promotional debut on August 12’s Strikeforce Challengers show, defeating Sarah D’Alelio by technical submission in just 25 seconds.
Though Rousey is just 24 and has only three fights in pro MMA, she has impressed many with her aggressiveness and finishing ability. All three of her bouts have finished in fight-ending armbars, and the longest of the three lasted just 49 seconds.
Prior to her pro career, she fought three times as an amateur, going 3-0 with three armbar submissions, all in less than one minute.
The 28-year-old Budd is 2-1, with all three of her pro fights coming under the Strikeforce banner. She won her debut against Shana Nelson via TKO before suffering a TKO loss to Amanda Nunes. In June, she got back in the victory column by defeating Germaine de Randamie in a unanimous decision.
(“Hey, remember when I punched you in the face? That was awesome.” Photo courtesy of Esther/Strikeforce)
Inactive for 14 months (and counting), Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santosconfirmed via Twitter last night that she has finally re-signed with Strikeforce. The 145-pound women’s champ officially became a free-agent in June, when her champion’s clause expired before she and Strikeforce could come to terms on a new deal. Though she had been negotiating with other organizations — and was even courted by the WWE — Santos is back where she belongs, and will face Opponent TBA at Event TBA.
Of course, Cyborg’s original problem still remains — that there are no credible challengers ready to fight her. I have a bad feeling that Ronda Rousey is about to get a life-changing phone call very soon.
(“Hey, remember when I punched you in the face? That was awesome.” Photo courtesy of Esther/Strikeforce)
Inactive for 14 months (and counting), Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santosconfirmed via Twitter last night that she has finally re-signed with Strikeforce. The 145-pound women’s champ officially became a free-agent in June, when her champion’s clause expired before she and Strikeforce could come to terms on a new deal. Though she had been negotiating with other organizations — and was even courted by the WWE — Santos is back where she belongs, and will face Opponent TBA at Event TBA.
Of course, Cyborg’s original problem still remains — that there are no credible challengers ready to fight her. I have a bad feeling that Ronda Rousey is about to get a life-changing phone call very soon.
Filed under: Strikeforce, NewsThe Strikeforce Challengers 18 event on Aug. 12 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas sold a total of 549 tickets for a gate of $53,670, the Nevada athletic commission revealed Wednesday.
The Strikeforce Challengers 18 event on Aug. 12 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas sold a total of 549 tickets for a gate of $53,670, the Nevada athletic commission revealed Wednesday.
A total of 1,956 tickets were issued, with 1,341 tickets papered and 66 left unsold. According to reported salaries, fighters earned $92,000 in purses and win bonuses on the 10-bout card.
The numbers for Strikeforce Challengers 18 was an improvement from the promotion’s debut at the Palms Casino Resort on July 22 when Strikeforce Challengers 17 sold 458 tickets for a gate of $42,987.50.
However, both shows drew far less than the The Ultimate Fighter Finale cards which also call the Pearl at the Palms its home base. At the TUF 13 Finale in June, the UFC pulled in 1,494 paid for a live gate of $429,000.
Strikeforce Challengers 18 was highlighted by Joe Duarte outpointing Jorge Gurgel in the main event and Ronda Rousey making her Strikeforce debut with an armbar win in 25 seconds.
Funny thing about literal translations: they’re rarely very good at saying exactly what you mean, rather they tend to sort-of-in-a-general-way communicate a rough idea. And sometimes, they’re downright misleading. Take judo, for example. The Japanese translates into English imprecisely to begin with: ju translates literally as “gentle” or “soft”, while do is “way” or “path”. Both of these concepts relate more to the philosophy of judo — conservation of energy and an emphasis on technique — than a description of the style and action. Ask anyone who’s ever tried a few classes in the “gentle way“, and they’ll tell you that it’s anything but. Any class that begins with learning how to fall down with minimal pain runs a significant risk of being brutal.
Judo was born in the late 19th Century by a Japanese jujitsu fella by the name of Jiguro Kano, known to his brodogs as “Da Jigumon”. Kano had begun training as a result of being bullied growing up —a storythat stillrings truethrough time. At the time, “jujitsu” was something of a generic term for unarmed fighting, and schools varied wildy in technique, training methods, and instruction.
Funny thing about literal translations: they’re rarely very good at saying exactly what you mean; rather, they tend to sort-of-in-a-general-way communicate a rough idea. And sometimes, they’re downright misleading. Take judo, for example. The Japanese translates into English imprecisely to begin with: ju translates literally as “gentle” or “soft”, while do is “way” or “path”. Both of these concepts relate more to the philosophy of judo — conservation of energy and an emphasis on technique — than a description of the style and action. Ask anyone who’s ever tried a few classes in the “gentle way“, and they’ll tell you that it’s anything but. Any class that begins with learning how to fall down with minimal pain runs a significant risk of being brutal.
Judo was born in the late 19th Century by a Japanese jujitsu fella by the name of Jiguro Kano, known to his brodogs as “Da Jigumon”. Kano had begun training as a result of being bullied growing up –a storythat stillrings truethrough time. At the time, “jujitsu” was something of a generic term for unarmed fighting, and schools varied wildy in technique, training methods, and instruction.
Kano redefined weaponless combat by focusing on a relative handful of techniques from jujitsu schools, emphasizing techniques that were a) actually applicable in real life situations (so they threw out the Scorpion kick and the Torture Rack) and b) safe to practice on a live partner (so they dropped the tiger claw eye gouge to spinal cord asplosion touch of death).
His break from practicing martial arts primarily through kata (waving your arms around in the air and looking all silly) and placing an importance on randori (actual ass kicking with a real live person) was revolutionary.
Japanese jujitsu schools continued to develop, influence, and challenge judo. It was a small jujitsu school (Fusen ryu) that was on the vanguard of ground-based grappling that led to a heightened interest in learning something besides how to throw someone to the ground really hard. The result was a surge of ne waza judo around the turn of the century, just when Mitsuyo Maeda was studying martial arts. A student of both classical-style jujitsu and Jiguro Kano’s judo, Maeda emigrated to Brazil before World War I, where he met a Brazilian fella by the name of Gracie. But that’s a whole other story.
Judo continues to evolve, particularly the rules of international competition. But throwing somebody down really hard is still really, really awesome.
Judo Strengths
Judo players tend to bring a great deal of upper body strength to the cage for MMA, and their standing clinch work is as good as any style. They tend to be explosive athletes, with knockout power. Add to that training with submissions and ground fighting, and it is a powerful base.
Judo’s popularity in MMA waxes and wanes — remember when Karo Parisyan was an exciting new prospect? — and with an influx of new blood lately, interest is gaining again.
The uchi mata is one of the throws you may spot in MMA. Megumi Fujii has a beautiful uchi mata, and that’s not slang for anything. Judo master/sambo savant/all-round grappling ninja Gokor Chivichyan won a gold medal at the 2008 USJA/USJF Winter Nationals with an uchi mata, and we found this very cool video of his demonstrating a slick kneebar off of a defended uchi mata. And that’s just one throw. Judo has, like, a whole lot.
Ok, Nation, brush up on your Japanese, go watch a few YouTube videos, and get out there and start hip tossing fools. It’s what Jiguro Kano would want.*
She doesn’t mind controversy in general, really. Something has to bring attention to women’s MMA and, at least the way Rousey sees it, all the fighters trying to out-nice each other isn’t going to do it.
“My goal is not the be the most liked girl in women’s MMA,” Rousey told Ariel Helwani on Tuesday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “I want to be the most talked about girl in women’s MMA. If there’s a lot of controversy, people saying I suck, I’m cocky, or it was a good fight or an amazing move — as long as there’s polarizing opinions and people want to discuss it.”
Rousey, who won an Olympic bronze medal in women’s judo in the 2008 Beijing games, improved her MMA record to 3-0 with a first-round armbar victory over D’Alelio on August 12. Referee Steve Mazzagatti’s stoppage at the 25-second mark of the bout drew immediate criticism, as D’Alelio clearly didn’t tap to the submission.
After the bout, D’Alelio admitted that she’d made some verbal indication of pain when Rousey jumped into the armbar, and that was apparently good enough to bring the bout to a halt.
“I think the referee was right to stop the fight,” Rousey said. “They tell you the second that you walk in, like right before you walk in, they tell you, ‘If you’re in a submission, anything verbal, like if you yell or scream or anything like that we’ll call the fight.’ So she was very aware that that was the case. It’s not like she didn’t know that that was the rule or something like that, because they literally tell you right before you walk out.”
In case you couldn’t tell, Rousey isn’t one to hold her tongue, nor is she aiming to be the Ms. Congeniality of the women’s MMA world. She had enough of that on the U.S. Olympic judo squad, she said, and she doesn’t think it helps raise her profile or that of the sport to do it now.
“When I was in the Olympics and I was representing the United States I had to be very proper, like, yes, this is the right thing to say and I won’t say anything about how I think [George] Bush is a retard,” Rousey said. “I’m just going to go say what they want me to say and look bright and shiny and go win.
“But doing MMA, you’re representing yourself. You’re not representing your country. I feel like what women’s MMA needs is not some nice girl. Everyone’s playing the nice card and they’re not willing to go under any kind of criticism and I really feel that that’s not what we need if we want to get as much exposure as possible. We need someone more like a Tito Ortiz-type personality — not that I’m trying to be that much of a d–k, no offense to Tito. But I want to be one of those people who people either love then or hate them and groups of people actually have heated discussions about it. I want there to be attention on the sport, and if I have to attract some bad attention to get that, then fine I’ll be willing to be that person.”
Not that Rousey is exactly new to being a bit of a renegade, she admitted. Like most male fighters, she did her share of fighting outside of a sporting context, even if it only brought her trouble.
“I’ve never gotten away with a fight in my entire life. I even got jumped by a bunch of guys once and I beat them up, and they sued me for assault. Every fight I got into in school, I always got a suspension or community service, and it’s just never been worth it to me. If I could get in a fight without there being legal repercussions, I would be in a fight every single day. I don’t go out to clubs at all, because I know if someone grabs my a– I’ll punch them in the face.”
But now that she’s trying to make a career out of MMA, Rousey isn’t afraid to make herself a lightning rod for criticism, or to use her looks to get attention from fans, even if all her peers might not like it.
“I fought for a long time to get in the Olympics and win an Olympic medal wearing, like, a bathrobe, and I ended up with ten grand and a handshake,” she said. “What do you really want me to do? If it was a perfect world where I could walk in there, just roll out of bed and go in there and make the same money, then fine. But I fought for pride for a long time and ended up with nothing but a box full of medals. If I want to make this a career I have to play up the looks side. The people that criticize it are the people that aren’t in that situation.”
The fact the more attractive female fighters stand to make more money shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Rousey said, even if it’s a topic some in the sport would rather ignore.
“I mean, it’s more entertaining to watch two [attractive] girls wrestling around than two ugly girls wrestling around,” said Rousey. “I’m sorry I had to like, point out the elephant in the room, but that’s the truth. That’s what people want to see and that’s what’s going to sell tickets and that’s what’s going to make money and that’s what’s going to get all of us a better salary. So yes, I think it’s very important for there to be good-looking girls fighting.”
Instead of depending on Gina Carano to be the face of women’s MMA, she said, the sports needs “a couple of girls that are very skilled and decent-looking and we wouldn’t be in a position where, if one girl goes off to do movies, then the whole sport itself is screwed.”
It might not be exactly what every fight fan wants to hear, but then, that’s sort of the point. If by speaking her mind, Rousey then makes herself more of a subject of conversation, she seems fine with that.
And while she wouldn’t name her next opponent aside from hinting that it would be “an interesting fight,” she does have some plans for her fighting future.
“In the perfect world, after this contract was over I’d like to fight Gina Carano and then I’d like to fight Cris “Cyborg” [Santos].”
At least there’s one thing Rousey will never be accused of, and that’s setting her sights too low.
She doesn’t mind controversy in general, really. Something has to bring attention to women’s MMA and, at least the way Rousey sees it, all the fighters trying to out-nice each other isn’t going to do it.
“My goal is not the be the most liked girl in women’s MMA,” Rousey told Ariel Helwani on Tuesday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “I want to be the most talked about girl in women’s MMA. If there’s a lot of controversy, people saying I suck, I’m cocky, or it was a good fight or an amazing move — as long as there’s polarizing opinions and people want to discuss it.”
Rousey, who won an Olympic bronze medal in women’s judo in the 2008 Beijing games, improved her MMA record to 3-0 with a first-round armbar victory over D’Alelio on August 12. Referee Steve Mazzagatti’s stoppage at the 25-second mark of the bout drew immediate criticism, as D’Alelio clearly didn’t tap to the submission.
After the bout, D’Alelio admitted that she’d made some verbal indication of pain when Rousey jumped into the armbar, and that was apparently good enough to bring the bout to a halt.
“I think the referee was right to stop the fight,” Rousey said. “They tell you the second that you walk in, like right before you walk in, they tell you, ‘If you’re in a submission, anything verbal, like if you yell or scream or anything like that we’ll call the fight.’ So she was very aware that that was the case. It’s not like she didn’t know that that was the rule or something like that, because they literally tell you right before you walk out.”
In case you couldn’t tell, Rousey isn’t one to hold her tongue, nor is she aiming to be the Ms. Congeniality of the women’s MMA world. She had enough of that on the U.S. Olympic judo squad, she said, and she doesn’t think it helps raise her profile or that of the sport to do it now.
“When I was in the Olympics and I was representing the United States I had to be very proper, like, yes, this is the right thing to say and I won’t say anything about how I think [George] Bush is a retard,” Rousey said. “I’m just going to go say what they want me to say and look bright and shiny and go win.
“But doing MMA, you’re representing yourself. You’re not representing your country. I feel like what women’s MMA needs is not some nice girl. Everyone’s playing the nice card and they’re not willing to go under any kind of criticism and I really feel that that’s not what we need if we want to get as much exposure as possible. We need someone more like a Tito Ortiz-type personality — not that I’m trying to be that much of a d–k, no offense to Tito. But I want to be one of those people who people either love then or hate them and groups of people actually have heated discussions about it. I want there to be attention on the sport, and if I have to attract some bad attention to get that, then fine I’ll be willing to be that person.”
Not that Rousey is exactly new to being a bit of a renegade, she admitted. Like most male fighters, she did her share of fighting outside of a sporting context, even if it only brought her trouble.
“I’ve never gotten away with a fight in my entire life. I even got jumped by a bunch of guys once and I beat them up, and they sued me for assault. Every fight I got into in school, I always got a suspension or community service, and it’s just never been worth it to me. If I could get in a fight without there being legal repercussions, I would be in a fight every single day. I don’t go out to clubs at all, because I know if someone grabs my a– I’ll punch them in the face.”
But now that she’s trying to make a career out of MMA, Rousey isn’t afraid to make herself a lightning rod for criticism, or to use her looks to get attention from fans, even if all her peers might not like it.
“I fought for a long time to get in the Olympics and win an Olympic medal wearing, like, a bathrobe, and I ended up with ten grand and a handshake,” she said. “What do you really want me to do? If it was a perfect world where I could walk in there, just roll out of bed and go in there and make the same money, then fine. But I fought for pride for a long time and ended up with nothing but a box full of medals. If I want to make this a career I have to play up the looks side. The people that criticize it are the people that aren’t in that situation.”
The fact the more attractive female fighters stand to make more money shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Rousey said, even if it’s a topic some in the sport would rather ignore.
“I mean, it’s more entertaining to watch two [attractive] girls wrestling around than two ugly girls wrestling around,” said Rousey. “I’m sorry I had to like, point out the elephant in the room, but that’s the truth. That’s what people want to see and that’s what’s going to sell tickets and that’s what’s going to make money and that’s what’s going to get all of us a better salary. So yes, I think it’s very important for there to be good-looking girls fighting.”
Instead of depending on Gina Carano to be the face of women’s MMA, she said, the sports needs “a couple of girls that are very skilled and decent-looking and we wouldn’t be in a position where, if one girl goes off to do movies, then the whole sport itself is screwed.”
It might not be exactly what every fight fan wants to hear, but then, that’s sort of the point. If by speaking her mind, Rousey then makes herself more of a subject of conversation, she seems fine with that.
And while she wouldn’t name her next opponent aside from hinting that it would be “an interesting fight,” she does have some plans for her fighting future.
“In the perfect world, after this contract was over I’d like to fight Gina Carano and then I’d like to fight Cris “Cyborg” [Santos].”
At least there’s one thing Rousey will never be accused of, and that’s setting her sights too low.
Just two weeks after notching a win in her 
The 
