Random Thoughts after Fight Night: Armbars, Spite & Ronda's Next Fight

On twitter, @gilbert_king asked,

"Am I wrong? Everyone is talking about the arm bar but Ronda's judo skills are getting her into the mount so she can get the arm bar quicker."

He is not wrong. In fact (warning - shameless plug ahead - ) I wrote a couple of chapters in our book on transition from standing to matwork. Judo players who are really, really good at matwork are a small fraction of all of those competing in judo. All of those who excel at matwork are either very good at transition or very good at matwork combinations. Ronda is one of the minority within that minority who happens to be very good at both.

@svtjer, also on twitter (and congratulations on winning the free rice competition, by the way!) , asked

... since I like the technical side of things, is it possible to break own arm pulling 2 hard? For ex lft arm

I don't believe you could break your own arm if you were DOING the arm bar correctly. A correct arm bar locks the arm against your body, so it isn't as if you are lifting weights and could hurt your arm pulling too hard. Defending against the arm bar correctly -- well, there is a way to escape from an arm bar and all I can say is - what she is doing above is not it, obviously. There are two drills in our book on how to escape an arm bar and a discussion of how not to escape.

The main way NOT to escape you CAN actually break your own arm. I'm not going to say any more. You will have to buy the book.

And on to Ms. (Cyborg) Santos ...

I don't know the woman. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt. When I heard rumors she was doing steroids I said she was probably just training really hard. There used to be rumors about me and I passed every drug test ever. I lifted weights a lot and trained my ass off. Ronda scoffed at me for being naive. So ... then she failed a drug test and we know that she did do steroids.

I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt again and assume she is not stupid, and that she doesn't want to lose. THAT, I believe is the reason she doesn't want to fight Ronda. I say this because while I do not know Ms. Santos, I DO know Ronda. Seriously, do you mean to tell me that if there was enough money involved you couldn't drop ten pounds from your usual competitive weight? I won the U.S. Open at both 48 kg and 56 kg -- that is 106 and 123 pounds, so I am not buying it.

We were talking about the odds for the fight and Walter Mendez, one of Ronda's old judo friends said, 

Yeah, I would have bet some money on you but I would have had to bet $100 to get back like 8 bucks.

If the fight with Santos has close to even odds, I'm putting down some serious money.

 As with every parent, there are traits in each of my children that I think are faults they need to correct. 

Ronda holds a grudge. 

I can kind of understand this because I am that way if you are mean to one of my children. I will hate you forever. Ronda is that way about way too many things. She will still bring up the fact that one of her sisters borrowed her favorite shirt eight years ago, washed it and ruined it. 

In this case, though ... all I can say is that what you saw Saturday night is nothing like what Ronda does when she has a grudge against someone. As she puts it, 

"I am greatly motivated by spite."

Having unsuccessfully tried to change that about her for 25 years, now, when it is going to do her the most good, I am going to sit back and watch it run its course.

When Ronda was 17 years old and became the first American to win the junior world championships, I was not surprised. When the U.S. coach asked me why not, I told him, 

"Remember, you have only seen Ronda on her average days, some of her better days. I see her every day, including at her very best. At her best, she is on top of the world."

One trait a good judo player needs is patience. I saw it with the French player in the Olympics who was down until the last three seconds when he slammed his opponent for ippon. Ronda has that patience. She will wait as long as she needs until Ms. Santos comes down to 135 lbs. And then she will get even for whatever real or imagined slight she feels.

If she is not stupid, Cyborg is trying to switch organizations, refusing to make the weight because she is running from Ronda. And she is right to do so.

You know that saying, "You won't like me when I am angry" ?

I don't mean unhappy she didn't get her way or frustrated because something doesn't work and a coach is yelling at her, I mean really, stone-cold, out for revenge angry.

You have no fucking idea.