Ronda’s MMA Match (12 August 2011)

Friday night, Ronda Rousey had her third professional MMA match. Her opponent was Sarah D’Alelio. It was a very quick match ending in 25 seconds by “verbal” tap out. Immediately at the stoppage, D’Alelio and her corner were protesting, declaring that she didn’t tap. Instant replay and slow motion confirmed that there was no physical tap. However, Ronda reported that D’Alelio made some sort of verbal groan and fighters were told prior to the match that such noises were cause to stop the match. The color commentator queried both fighters at the end and D’Alelio’s response was that she said “Argh!” (It is a little difficult to write what she said because it was some kind of noise.)

According to Rhadi Ferguson, on his blog for ProMMANow.com, “if you scream, you tapped!” I don’t know if this is written anywhere (if you know, dear readers, let me know!), but this is certainly reasonable to me.

If you haven’t seen the fight, here it is, courtesy of YouTube:

I think it was a wonderful fight with a very beautiful and rarely seen from Ronda, “flying armbar” transition. I know Ronda and AnnMaria have so much experience with and know so many entries to juji gatame this particular entry should be no surprise, but it was. The biggest reason for my surprise was that Ronda hasn’t shown this in any of the judo matches or other MMA matches (granted the MMA matches have all been under a minute, so…) and the transition was pulled off so smoothly, you would have thought this was a regular “go to” move for her.

I’ve done a lot of reading about Ronda over the last four years or so and, personally, don’t think anyone she’s fought in MMA since she started is really up to her level of competition. I think she’s winning these matches so quickly out of habit, but perhaps she could play a little longer with her opponents? I think if she does that she’ll be more prepared for some of the variety she should be able to expect from Carano or Cyborg. On the other hand, I’ve seen her run the beach in Cali and I sure don’t want to be on the other side of the ring from her!

To Ronda, good on ya! Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing great things about you in the MMA ring! (Maybe one day I can figure out a way to get you to come to Roswell to do a clinic?)