On Saturday, November 13, 2015, “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey got her butt kicked by Holly Holm. Now, if you are not a follower of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), you may be unaware that Ronda Rousey is an international star—one who had been plowing through opponents in the Bantamweight division. Most of her recent fights had failed to last even thirty seconds, and she openly talked of retiring as an undefeated fighter. She stepped into the Octagon on Saturday fully expecting the Holm fight to have a similar result. However, someone forgot to tell Holly Holm what the script was. Holm is a multiple-time world champion professional boxer and knows what it means to fight and win. Unlike Rousey, she had lost fights and came back to win championships.
Everyone knew Holm had good stand-up (boxing) skills. The assumption was that Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist in judo, would throw her to the ground where Rousey excels, likely using her infamous arm-bar to submit Holm. Yet when Rousey had Holm in the perfect judo throwing position, Holm effectively blocked Rousey’s throw! In fact, Holm took Rousey to the ground and negated Rousey’s strength on the ground by consistently putting Rousey back on her feet to meet Holm’s strength (stand up boxing). Holm’s clever strategy resulted in a Rousey loss. Not only did Rousey lose the fight, but Holm also pounded her face so hard that Rousey required plastic surgery!
Rousey clearly did not think she would be in a stand up fight with Holm and did not train for that eventuality. Holm knew Rousey would make every attempt to take her to the ground and trained to keep that from occurring. In planning for every possibility and effectively negating each strength of her opponent, Holm is clearly the very essence of “grounded.” Now, we’ll see whether Rousey responds or reacts (though she was very gracious in speaking of Holm post-match, which is a very good sign of “grounded” maturity). I suspect the rematch in July 2016 will be one of the most watched events ever.