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Rousey vs. Correia: Highlights, Analysis for UFC 190 Main Event

A brief highlights package has been commonplace in Ronda Rousey’s UFC career, and that trend continued in Saturday’s first-round knockout against Bethe Correia at UFC 190, held in Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena.
Rousey required just 34 seconds this time a…

A brief highlights package has been commonplace in Ronda Rousey‘s UFC career, and that trend continued in Saturday’s first-round knockout against Bethe Correia at UFC 190, held in Rio de Janeiro’s HSBC Arena.

Rousey required just 34 seconds this time around to successfully defend her UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship for a sixth consecutive bout.

Check out some of the highlights from the fight in the video below, courtesy of the UFC on Fox:

It didn’t take much for Rousey to assert her will once again. Rather than going for the submission by way of her devastating armbar that has decided many of her previous wins, Rousey became tangled up with Correia frequently in the early going, trading punches and gaining leverage by pinning Correia against the cage.

With little real estate to work with inside the Octagon, Correia didn’t have the firepower to hang with someone as tenacious as Rousey.

Despite a home Brazilian crowd behind the underdog, “Rowdy” proved yet again she’s the best at what she does. A decisive knockout blow delivered to Correia’s temple by a vicious Rousey right-handed punch stopped the championship clash. Rousey even got a left jab to her foe’s face as Correia collapsed to the canvas.

ABS-CBN Sports passed along what Rousey had to say to Correia following her latest UFC exploits:

Correia had been understandably fired up to face Rousey, with a chance to shock the world and emerge with a massive upset in her native country. It simply wasn’t in the cards, as Correia was outmatched as many who have challenged Rousey before her have been.

FiveThirtyEight has a neat graphic to illustrate how Rousey wins with ease at an astonishing rate:

SportsCenter further supports that notion, showing how Rousey’s greatness transcends the gender barrier:

The data above goes to prove furthermore that Rousey is in a class of her own. She could retire now and be regarded as the greatest female fighter in the history of combat sports. At just 28 years old and with plenty of punch to still pack, though, Rousey doesn’t figure to be going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Even if the results continue to be the same and no worthy rival comes along to give Rousey a truer test, it’s unlikely fans will tire of seeing her reign atop the sport.

With a perfect 12-0 record in her professional MMA career, Rousey doesn’t know what losing feels like—and may well never experience the feeling. In such an individual sport, there needs to be a clear-cut superstar to pave the way for progress. Rousey has the charisma, class and capacity to crush the spirit of any opponent she comes across.

That combination has proven to be indefatigable to date. It will continue to be until a savvy, lightning-quick striker comes along who can avoid Rousey’s bull rush, avert engaging in heavy contact so early and ultimately pull off what’s currently believed to be impossible.

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UFC 190: Shogun Rua Isn’t Back, but He’s Not Done Either

Mauricio “Shogun” Rua has had a pretty volatile run in the UFC. He’s a former champion who has fought the absolute best of the best since he first showed up in the Octagon, but he’s also 7-8 in the promotion and has been a baffl…

Prior to getting back on track against Nogueira on Saturday night, he lost two in a row and four of five—six of nine if you want to go back a little further. But in that run, he lost to Jon Jones and narrowly to Dan Henderson a couple of times, smoked James Te Huna and totally overwhelmed Brandon Vera.

He’s incredibly, remarkably contradictory in his performances.

In his wins, he often produces the type of violence that has people exuberantly claiming that he’s back and motivated and ready to become champion again. In his losses, he tends to have people mourning his very existence and hoping that he’ll consider retirement given the punishment he’s absorbed in his career.

The Nogueira win produced something in between.

The first round saw him rocked a couple of times, falling back against the cage and covering up long enough to sloppily return fire from the pocket. The second saw him collect himself and begin a more conservative fight, thudding body kicks and punching combinations around clinching and takedowns. The third was close but resembled the second enough for the judges to side with Rua and award him his first win in nearly two years.

Afterward, no one was claiming he was back, but no one was claiming he was done either. It’s that kind of even-handed approach to the years Rua has left that might allow him to flourish for a final time.

With the pressure of having to fight the best every time out, Rua has struggled to gain momentum. His wins have come every time the UFC has tried to force him into the role of gatekeeper, a role he continuously proves resistant to, but his losses have come whenever he’s been thrust back into the realm of contendership.

This time, with no egregious celebrations of his latest win, perhaps he can get his footing back under him. A fight with Rampage Jackson or Jimi Manuwa—should he survive his bout with Anthony Johnson next month—would make a lot of sense, as both are guys the UFC has no particular plans for, and it would put no pressure on Rua to provide a given outcome—a situation very much analogous to his fight with Nogueira.

At 33 years old, the Brazilian is relatively young, but he’s shopworn in a way that almost no one in the sport is at that age. He’s been in more crazy wars than most guys have had fights, and that’s obviously going to add up over time. But he’s still got skill and a reunion with Rafael Cordeiro, buoyed by training partners like Fabricio Werdum and Rafael dos Anjos, which will only sharpen it further.

All of this is to say that Shogun Rua isn’t back, but he’s not done either. He beat a 39-year-old warhorse on Saturday night and needed the scorecards to do it, but a win is a win. He looked like he could rack up a few more against the right opponents and with the right training.

Simply accepting that fact, without the euphoric highs of title talk or the dizzying lows of requesting a retirement, is a pretty good place to be for one of the sport’s true legends.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!

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UFC 190: A Case for No More TUF Fights on Pay-Per-View, Ever

Some people are quite fond of the modern direction of the UFC, where the product is omnipresent on the sports landscape thanks to regular appearances on FOX and its satellites. There is no offseason, no reset button and no reason to go without a UFC fi…

There are times that can be nice, like when Conor McGregor and T.J. Dillashaw put on remarkable shows in entirely different ways only a couple of weeks apart, as they did in July. There are also times that it is a total nightmare, as was the case at UFC 190.

In the middle of the event, which was probably exceeding expectations after a spirited strawweight fight, a heavyweight knockout and a second, watchable heavyweight bout, the UFC saw fit to dump a pair of finals for The Ultimate Fighter right in the middle of the broadcast. A regional The Ultimate Fighter, at that.

No. Thank you.

This was the product of a scheduling mishap, where the original finale for TUF: Brazil 4 was supposed to take place in Brazil, then in Florida, then visa issues scattered fights and fighters over a few different events. However, it’s reasonable to suggest that, with more care paid to spreading itself too thin, the UFC could have avoided said mishap and avoided subjecting people to the low-level combat that broke up an otherwise passable event.

And before you rush to defend the overlords at Zuffa, consider this: The prime argument of Dana White and his pals has long been “if you don’t like it, don’t watch it.” While that hot take is still sizzling, take a moment to realize that such action was not possible if someone were inclined to see the rest of the standard five-fight card they were making available. Pay-per-view is not a pay by the fight enterprise, so if you wanted stars like Nogueira, Shogun Rua and Ronda Rousey, you better believe you were getting Glaico Franca and Dileno Lopes.

Also ponder the notion that, if you were to break down the cost of a pay-per-view by fight, you spent roughly $17 to watch those TUF fights that you didn’t ask for. That’s nearly two months of UFC Fight Pass, which offers every fight in the history of the UFC, down the drain on four guys you’ve never heard of and didn’t want to see in the first place.

This is among the first times in history where “card subject to change” has resulted in an addition of multiple bouts, and those bouts actively detracted from the experience of an event. Besides taking away some of the momentum that had been built to that point, the TUF: Brazil finale fights also wreaked havoc on the pacing of the pay-per-view.

It was deep into the early morning before Ronda Rousey took to the cage, and anyone arguing that people cared more for unknown bantamweights and lightweights than the sport’s biggest star is simply delusional.

Now, there is a logical explanation for this beyond the scheduling concerns noted above. Guilherme Cruz mentioned on MMA Fighting’s wrap-up show that the UFC’s television partner in Brazil, Globo, wanted the fights on UFC 190 to maximize exposure. That make enough sense, but was there truly no other way to make it work than to stick it to audiences everywhere else in the world? Many of whom paid straight cash for everything but those fights?

One of the greatest benefits of running shows nearly every week should be that a card bloated by uninteresting fights should never be forced on consumers who are shelling out cash for what is, theoretically, the best product the UFC can offer. These fights should have been somewhere else—anywhere else—because forcing substandard competition into the middle of the biggest stage is problematic for everyone involved.

This isn’t even to say the fights themselves were horrible. The first had some excitement and the second ended with a submission, which is more than a lot of UFC fights offer. But most people who paid for the event would have been just as happy to read about them in a results post after they happened on FOX Sports 1 some other time.

If you don’t like it, don’t watch? Fine, sounds good. But at least give the option instead of dumping it in the middle of a pay event and shrugging.

Follow me on Twitter @matthewjryder!

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UFC 190: The Opportunity to Promote Rousey vs. ‘Cyborg’ Was Missed

UFC 190 was a major event that should be considered a success for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Ronda Rousey further cemented her position as a great star for the sport and demolished another challenger to her throne.
However, the organization mi…

However, the organization missed the boat in one key area. Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino was in the crowd, but she was not brought in to stake her claim as the top contender to Rousey’s title. Setting up that moment would have created a huge opportunity in the future for both fighters and the UFC as a whole.

Justino is perhaps the last hurdle Rousey must leap in order to call her mixed martial arts career “complete.” The former Strikeforce and current Invicta champion has dominated all the competition that has been put in her way, much in the same way Rousey has done during her climb to fame.

During said climb, Rousey and Justino have been in each other’s crosshairs for years. She was immediately brought up during the post-fight press conference, and both Rousey and UFC President Dana White had to comment on the situation.

“I prefer [to fight] who makes weight and doesn’t do drugs. The fight’s there for Cyborg. She can make 145 pumped full of steroids; she can move down without them,” Rousey said. “I’m not going anywhere. I don’t see why everyone acts like I have so much to prove when she has to prove she can actually fight legitimately.”

White immediately followed up Rousey with his own comments on the action.

“She didn’t make the weight yet. The day she makes the weight and does what she’s supposed to do, that fight is on,” White said. “You think I don’t want that fight? Now I’m changing my mind on that fight. I think that fight does 2.5 million [pay-per-view] buys. That fight is massive.”

“Massive” is the right word to use. On an edition of the Jim Rome Show, White mentioned he believed the fight would do a very large pay-per-view buy rate.

“It’s one of those fights that’s very intriguing. When that fight happens, I guarantee that thing does over 2 million pay-per-view buys.”

UFC 190 was a moment in which the organization should have brought Justino into the cage to have her face off against Rousey. Conor McGregor took the moment into his own hands when he jumped over the cage after defeating Dennis Siver to face off against featherweight champion, Jose Aldo.

That set the stage for the successful UFC 189 event, even though Aldo was not present on the card. Using a similar approach between these two women would have created an immediate hype around the event well beyond what is currently going on in the mixed martial arts world.

Damon Martin of Fox Sports is reporting that the UFC is interested in putting the third fight between Rousey and Miesha Tate on the card that features the McGregor-Aldo matchup. While that would be a strong event if pulled off, the UFC should look at having Justino on that card instead of Tate. The groundwork for such a major fight should have kicked off at UFC 190. Mainstream and hardcore fans can only hope this bout happens while interest is still high.

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UFC 190 Results: Five Fights for Demian Maia

Demian Maia put on a Brazilian jiu-jitsu clinic for two rounds before he submitted Neil Magny during their UFC 190 bout. The 37-year old fighter used his skill set to stifle every attempt at offense from his younger competitor.
Maia is slotted in the N…

Maia is slotted in the No. 6 position within the welterweight division, and this dominating win opens up some interesting bouts for him in the future.

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UFC 190 Results: Full List of Winners, Losers and Fight Stats

The buildup to UFC 190 was all about Ronda Rousey, but there were a few more fighters who used the opportunity to make a big statement and gain some momentum.
With a lot of Brazil’s elder statesmen on the card, there were those who reminded the M…

The buildup to UFC 190 was all about Ronda Rousey, but there were a few more fighters who used the opportunity to make a big statement and gain some momentum.

With a lot of Brazil’s elder statesmen on the card, there were those who reminded the MMA world they’re still a live dog. Then there were those (looking at you Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira) who showed they might need to start taking up a retirement hobby.

Here’s a look at the complete results along with some of the more significant fights from the card in Rio de Janeiro.

UFC 190 Results

UFC 190 Main Card

Ronda Rousey def. Bethe Correia, knockout (Round 1, 0:34)
Mauricio Rua def. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Glaico Franca def. Fernando Bruno, submission (Round 3, 4:46)
Reginaldo Vieira def. Dileno Lopes, unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27)
Stefan Struve def. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Antonio Silva def. Soa Palelei, TKO (Round 2, 0:41)
Claudia Gadelha def. Jessica Aguilar, unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)

Prelims on Fox Sports 1

Demian Maia def. Neil Magny, submission (Round 2, 2:52)
Patrick Cummins def. Rafael Cavalcante, TKO (Round 3, 0:45)
Warlley Alves def. Nordine Taleb, submission (Round 2, 4:11)
Iuri Alcantara def. Leandro Issa, unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-27)

Prelims on UFC Fight Pass

Vitor Miranda def. Clint Hester, TKO (Round 2, 2:38)
Guido Cannetti def. Hugo Viana, unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)

UFC 190 Highlights

Demian Maia Puts on Grappling Clinic Against Neil Magny

One of the most relevant fights to go down on the UFC 190 card actually closed out the prelims. No. 6 ranked Demian Maia put on a grappling exhibition against No. 13 Neil Magny.

The 27-year-old Magny has looked promising recently. He came into Rio on a seven-fight win streak that included finishes in his last three bouts. But the one thing that has plagued him throughout his run in the UFC has been grappling.

As Maia proved, it’s an area he still hasn’t taken the next step in. Michael Carroll of FightMetric broke down just how dominant the jiu-jitsu whizz was on the ground:

According to FightMetric, Maia went a perfect 2-of-2 on takedown attempts, scoring one in each round. The relentless ground attack left Magny entirely helpless as he managed to throw only four significant strikes and landed none.

Magny still has the opportunity to evolve. He isn’t the first to be submitted by Maia and he probably won’t be the last. However, this will need to be a wake-up call.

For Maia, this is his third victory in a row. A step up in competition might be warranted.

Antonio Silva Shows He’s Not Done Yet

You’d be excused if you’d written off Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva for dead. A loser by knockout in three of his last four bouts heading into his UFC 190 fight, it looked like the 35-year-old didn’t have the chin to pick up another win in the power-heavy 265-pound division.

That notion was wrong.

Soa Palelei had his moments in the first round. He secured a takedown and landed ground-and-pound punches. According to FightMetric, he opened up an 18-4 advantage in the significant-strikes category. But in the end, this fight was about Silva’s ability to take some damage, rally and utilize his power to score a knockout.

Jason Floyd of the MMA Report tweeted out final stats from the bout:

Silva was able to score a knockout win for the first time since he finished Alistair Overeem in February 2013. A win over Palelei isn’t necessarily an emphatic return to heavyweight prominence, but it does mean the rumors of Silva’s demise as a top-tier heavyweight may have been a bit premature.

Ronda Rousey Wastes No Time Defending Belt

The most impressive stat of the night was 34: That’s how many seconds it took Ronda Rousey to let Bethe Correia know that she would be taking the belt back to the United States with her when she left Rio.

As ESPN Stats & Info noted, quick finishes have become Rousey‘s calling card of late. There are simply few women in the division who can handle the pressure that comes with fighting the champion for more than a minute.

The scary thing about Rousey‘s win this time around was that it didn’t even follow the usual pattern. Yes, Rousey was able to get a clinch at will, but she legitimately earned this knockout in the stand-up department.

That’s a scary development for the rest of the division. A division for which she sounded a warning, per Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting:

After beating down yet another top-10 opponent, that’s some advice anyone in the division probably wants to heed moving forward.

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