Ex-MMA champion’s aura of invincibility brutally shattered

IF YOU woke up last Sunday morning anticipating the news of another brutal finish to a fight involving dominant women’s UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, you wouldn’t have been disappointed.

You will, however, have been knocked over with a feather to find that it was Rousey herself who was sent to dreamland, a swinging kick to the jaw ending her reign as baddest woman on the planet.

Holly Holm, the huge underdog, had her arm raised in victory as Rousey was taken to hospital, to check for concussion, and have plastic surgery to a lip that had been grotesquely torn open.

It was the biggest upset in UFC history, one that mirrored James ‘Buster’ Douglas’s 10th round knockout of Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990, when the 42-1 underdog won boxing’s most treasured belt, the heavyweight championship.

Tyson, unbeaten and regarded as an unstoppable force of nature, was never the same again. It’s probably fair to say Rousey won’t be either.

There is talk of a rematch between Holm, a former world boxing and kickboxing champion, and Rousey, unbeaten in 12 previous fights and whose five most recent bouts up to the defeat had lasted a total of 188 seconds.

However, the UFC governing authorities slapped her with a six-month ban, so any rematch with the new 34-yearold champion will have to wait.

We now know that Rousey is beatable, just like Tyson was. In fact, Holm made it look so easy, and did it with a simple gameplan that seemed so obvious that one is left wondering just what Rousey and her entourage got up to in training for the fight.

Holm’s kick-boxing and boxing is her strength, Rousey’s is her grappling and arm locks, and as a former Olympic judo medallist you don’t want to allow her to get into close range. So Holm kept her on the outside as the champion rushed in.

Each attempt to narrow the distance by Rousey was met with a punch to a face that was getting redder with each flush connection. Make no mistake, whatever the future holds for Rousey, she will go down as a UFC game changer. But it’s unlikely that in 100 years’ time she will be regarded as a legend, or one of the greats of the brutal sport of mixed martial arts.

Mixed martial arts hasn’t – unlike boxing – been in existence for over a century to draw conclusive comparisons about who the greats of the game are. However, the world of women’s MMA had not seen anything like her brutality, ambition and strength, and if that simply makes her a pioneer for the sport, that’s also okay.

Influence

Just as Tyson won’t be regarded as the greatest heavyweight boxing champion of all time, Rousey won’t go down as the finest UFC champion either. But that doesn’t mean her influence doesn’t extend way beyond the perimeter of the octagon.

It was a brutal end to a fight that lived up to the hype. Sadly for boxing, it was just what MMA needed to prove that in terms of younger followers, it’s going in the right direction, while boxing is headed the other way.

What was dubbed as the ‘Fight of the Century’ earlier in the year proved to be a complete snorefest. Floyd Mayweather – boxing’s marquee act – put on a defensive masterclass to beat Manny Pacquiao on points after 12 rounds. Neither fighter had a mark on them afterwards.

Contrast this to Rousey, who’s red face was a mask of pain. In the wake of such a devastating defeat there were fans in denial, like they were when Douglas beat Tyson.

They reckon she’ll come back stronger and wiser than ever, but the manner in which she was dominated suggests otherwise. She may well become champion again, but don’t bank on it being by beating Holm, who lost only two of her 38 contests as a world champion boxer before switching codes.

Once the scars are healed – and when Rousey walked through the departures hall at Melbourne airport she held a travel pillow in front of her face – there will be talk of the beaten champion returning better than ever. Mayweather himself has offered to work with Rousey on her boxing skills, which were so brutally exposed by Holm’s superiority last week. But the scars that remain can’t be seen. They’re the mental ones, and they don’t heal easily.

The manner of Holm’s victory was conclusive; she provided the blueprint to anyone wanting to have a go at Rousey. The ex-champion herself will also realise that the cloak of invincibility has been ripped off.

Rousey will come again, but there will be demons running through her mind.

For me, she was the global female athlete of 2015. Just don’t expect her to be that in 2016 though.