Sunday, August 19, 2012

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.





14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ronda certainly can hold a grudge. I was pretty impresssed at how long she's managed to stay pissed at Sarah D'Alelio. D'Alelio is doing pretty good at 135 but I think she knows better than to get in the cage with Ronda again. Thats a broken arm gauranteed, even if she taps.

devils advocate said...

Cyborg could probably make 135 if she gave up some muscle.

I mean, Ronda didn't take the Sara McMann fight because she didn't want to be at 135. Like Cyborg, she's been quoted as saying she could never make 135.

And yet here she is, eating one meal a day. So maybe Cyborg is the same and will eventually diet her way down.

But the only way I see that happening is if every other company blackballs her, or all opponents refuse to fight her at 145.

That being said, her proposal of a 140lbs fight seems fair. If a terrified Gina Carano can take her down, what's Ronda worried about?

Also, why is Ronda no longer willing to fight Cyborg at 145? If the answer is 'because we've since learned she took roids' that's silly. Ronda scouted Cyborg and, despite suspecting she was doping determined she could beat her. Confirmation that Cyborg used roids doesn't make her any MORE strong or insurmountable. She's still the same beast Ronda thought she could beat before Cyborg tested positive.

And as far as Ronda's 'even the odds, have a fair fight for once in your life' angle... Well Ronda vs Cyborg at 145 would be more even odds than at 135. And In both Ronda would be the favorite. So actually the more even fight is at 145.

Not to mention you'd finally get to bet on closer odds at 145. And make some money.

Of course there's some dishonesty in all of that. 'Even' doesn't mean 'fair' for example, but I'm just voicing cyborgs pov. Which is odd because I'm not the least bit her fan.

Dr. AnnMaria said...

I don't think Ronda is worried about anything. She's just made up her mind she's fighting at 135 because that's her division now and no one is going to tell her what to do, least of all someone who lost her own title for cheating.

Al B Here said...

Looks like people are ignoring some really obvious facts about any potential match-up between Ronda and Cyborg. The most obvious one is that taking the fight at 135 lbs gives Ronda a significant competitive advantage by forcing Cyborg to cut as much weight as possible, thereby making her weaker. Ronda's even brought this up in interviews, if my memory serves me correctly. So why would she voluntarily give up an advantage like that? I hope she sticks to her guns and forces Cyborg to come to her weight... even if it means giving up a boatload of money.

Anonymous said...

Little known fact: Cyborg has fought at 135 before. She's being a little misleading on that point, implying she started at 145 and has always fought there. Apparently there was a promotion called 'Storm Samurai' where she did a few fights at 135 in 2006. She was scheduled to fight Baszler at 135 but they both missed weight. So I think real case can be made that Cyborg is the one ducking the fight.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the note (pre-fight) about the match. I don't watch much MMA, but that was impressive.

Irrelevant side note #1:

During the match, I yelled something along the lines of "She's getting the arm bar _already_!?!", and my 7-yo daughter asked what an arm bar was. I tried to show her. Now she's ... intruigued. She likes the idea of a move that can make her poor old Dad grunt in pain.

There's a judo club at the Y. She's still not sure whether she wants to give it a try - we'll see.

Irrelevant side note #2: I started following this blog only after reading your stats blog for a while. I enjoy your writing on both subjects.

Dr. AnnMaria said...

Ooh, I think I like your daughter already (-:

Anonymous said...

http://prommanow.com/2012/03/05/dr-rhadi-ferguson-on-ronda-rouseys-defeat-of-miesha-tate-and-what-is-next-for-the-champ/

It's that simple.

Steve Scott said...

I've seen you when you were mad back in the "old" days...if your kid is anything like that, I pity anyone facing her in an MMA cage. Actually, that's one of the things that made you as good as you were. You had "controlled" anger. Your anger worked for you. You didn't flip out; you used that anger to kick your opponent's butt. My wife did the same thing, as did several others. By the way, in Ronda's last fight, she gave a clinic on how to do juji gatame. There were so many good things that she did, we both could write another book on just that fight. Speaking of that, I mailed the copy of JUJI GATAME ENCYCLOPEDIA that you wanted to you Monday and am pleased to help out, especially for a good cause.

jcp said...

Ronda is so clearly in a league of her own in women's mma. I'd say it was an awesome fight.. but I think it is more accurate to say Ronda is dominating in an awesome fashion.

Unknown said...

Cyborg is 160 right now, Mrs. Rousey.

Swoon said...

If Cyborg is 160 right now CJ then she should get to work if she wants to fight Ronda. If she lays off the steroids now and follows a sensible nutrition plan she could be ready to go at 135 without a brutal cut by the time her suspension is up. There are a lot of current MMA fighters who walk around much heavier than their fighting weight, especially during long layoffs, so her being 25 pounds over right now is not particularly unusual or prohibitive.

Dr. AnnMaria said...

I agree with Swoon. People who are at 160 cut 25 pounds to make weight all the time. I've been around judo players and wrestlers my whole life. Saying you can't cut 25 pounds over a period of months is just not true. And you can do it safely. LOTS of women her height weigh under 160.

traderez said...

HOW MANY MMA fighters are on

natures steroids= ARONIA BERRIES ? I know the

Russians were the first and

swear by them . I know a pro

athlete that uses them in

conjunction with the "FREQUENsea"

product and now has TREMEDOUS

strength and immune system. There is NOT

one man made chemical in either

product. fwiw