Ronda Rousey, the current women’s MMA bantamweight champ, entered mixed martial arts with a background of judo and one amazing skillset of submission. She has managed to improve her strategy by including powerful punches, strong enough to knock her opponents out. But the reigning bantamweight champion has not faced any opponent like Holly Holm. Holm has an impressive striking pedigree and witnessing two great fighters go head to head will indeed be a fight that every MMA fan cannot miss.
Like Rousey, Holly Holm has an impressive fighting background. She is a multiple-time boxing world champ with kickboxing training and managed to win over six out of nine contenders in the MMA all by knockout.
Rousey is famous for beating her opponents in seconds. Out of her 12 fights in the MMA, only two of them made it to over a minute. Liz Carmouche and Miesha Tate were the only two fighters who lasted more than a minute with the champ inside the octagon. What Rousey typically does is she charges forward and intimidates her opponents. However, this technique might just not work for Holly.
“It will definitely be the biggest challenge yet. Holly’s not a person that I can really come at right away. The other girls that I’ve fought before don’t have the kind of footwork and movement that Holly has. They weren’t counter punchers, so I can’t really be aggressive right away because Holly’s a counter puncher and she has a reach advantage on me. She’s the kind of person that I have to be a lot more careful with and a lot more methodical and set things up. That being said, she’s a 19-time boxing world champion not MMA world champion, and I believe that I’m better than every other girl in every area of MMA. MMA striking is different, and I think I’m the best at it,” Rousey said during the UFC 193 conference held in Melbourne.
Rousey admitted that she has been eyeing on Holm since the boxing champ made her first appearance in MMA four years ago. The bantamweight champ knew that their paths would cross eventually, which will indeed happen this coming 15th of November in Melbourne, Australia. However, Rousey may need to mix up her techniques in order to beat Holm. But nevertheless, Rousey is confident that she’ll still be able to hold on to her title and beat Holm, making it Holm’s first mixed martial arts loss in her entire career.
“What makes me so confident that I can win is I’m the greatest fighter in the world. I truly believe it. What makes Holly such an intriguing challenger for me is – I’ve been watching her since the day she started MMA – I’ve known that our paths were going to cross at some point. I know that if there’s a 19-time boxing world champion coming into my sport, I have my eye on her. Since day one I’ve been watching her. She’s undefeated up to this point. She’s been really impressive with how she’s adapted to MMA and gone from just pure boxing to head-kick knockouts. And seeing how she’s come in the UFC, I know that she’s the type of fighter I want to test myself against. I want to show the world why I’m the best. I still have more to prove, and Holly is one more person that I’m going to prove myself against,” Rousey said.