mma / Columns

UFC 207: Why Ronda Rousey Should Get Her Title Shot

October 28, 2016 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris

Ronda Rousey will finally make her MMA return this December. For months, fans and analysts of the sport wondered if Rousey would ever even actually come back to MMA. It’s been nearly a year since her devastating loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193. Rousey’s layoff turned out to be longer than expected, and the UFC made it clear they want her to fight for the title when she gets back. At first, the UFC seemed steadfast in wanting to book a Rousey vs. Holm rematch immediately. That seemed highly unlikely because Rousey was on the injury shelf and did not have a return date in sight. As such, it made no sense to hold up the entire division on the chance that Rousey *might* come back. But now, it’s confirmed Rousey is coming, and she’s getting the title shot. However, her next opponent is someone fans likely never imagined, Amanda Nunes. There’s no pre-established rivalry between Rousey and Nunes, but this is absolutely the right call.

Ronda Rousey’s return is automatically going to be one of the biggest fights ever. It makes sense for that fight to be a title fight. No matter what anyone says, Ronda Rousey is a rare person who has transcended her sport. She’s a transcendent athlete. So, you have to book her in a big fight for her return fight. Normally, I wouldn’t really advocate for a former champion getting an immediate title rematch coming off a loss. I thought it was silly to book a Luke Rockhold vs. Chris Weidman rematch right off the bat considering how that fight played out. However, neither of those champions had the career of one Ronda Rousey. Up until the fight with Holm, Rousey owned her division and defended her title six times. She crushed every single one of her opponents, and she basically cleaned out the top five of her division. Rousey basically set the standard every other champion and fighter in the future of her division will be trying to meet or surpass, and that’s a pretty huge standard.

Recently, No. 5 ranked women’s bantamweight contender Juliana Pena expressed her disgust to MMAFighting.com for Rousey getting a title shot in her first fight back. She stated: “It’s bullshit. That spoiled brat has gotten everything handed to her, and she’s getting everything handed to her again. It’s bullshit. … Never in the history have I ever heard of somebody have a no-controversy brutal knockout, then quit the sport, and then comeback and get a title shot right away. The girl is mentally weak and Amanda Nunes is going to f**king knock her out and expose her ass. She’s literally the worst fighter on the roster, and I can’t stomach the fact that I’m not getting the title shot. I don’t know how they conduct business over there, but they’re going to do what they want no matter what, so there is not really much I could do. Back to the drawing board I guess.”

Pena’s words are absolutely ridiculous. For starters, how is Ronda Rousey spoiled? How did she get everything handed to her? The woman was undefeated in the first 12 fights of her career and finished every single one of her opponents. She defended her title six times. She was a champion in UFC and Strikeforce. She’s an Olympic medalist in judo. Ronda Rousey has been working just as hard if not harder in her life as Pena. Secondly, the bolded portion of the quote. I have heard of someone getting a shot in that exact scenario. A man by the name of Randy Couture. I’ve heard of someone else in that same scenario. Anderson Silva. I would say, Rousey set a similar unparalleled standard in her division much like Anderson Silva did at middleweight. I can see why it might be frustrating to other fighters in the division, but despite what Pena had to say, there’s a precedence for this happening in the UFC before.

Pena also said the following to MMAFighting: “Maybe I’ll go fight for Combate [Americas] or something because it sounds like they want to pay me serious money and actually give me a belt right off the bat just like they did with Ronda in the UFC. They just handed Ronda a belt and Combate will hand me a belt, so I don’t know, we’ll see how that goes. It’s definitely something that I would consider, you know. It’s starting to become a fake toy belt [the UFC belt]. I fight for money, I’m a prize fighter. So if somebody else wants to give me more money, I’ll gladly sit down at the negotiating table and see what’s going on and what’s being offered.”

Now, in some cases, I can understand certain fighters having some genuine grievances with the UFC and how they do business. This is not one of them. Pena’s being unprofessional here. Ronda Rousey built her division, and she practically built women’s MMA in the UFC. Rousey made it possible for Pena to be fighting in the UFC and compete in her chosen profession for a living. Guess what? Gina Carano left the sport, and interest in women’s MMA started to wane after her fight with Cyborg. Cyborg was taken out of the game after she was caught cheating with PEDs. Rousey was the one that picked up the slack and helped legitimize women’s MMMA, when even it was a polarizing subject in the MMA circles, and the UFC was never keen on bringing women’s MMA into the UFC. Rousey reversed that mindset entirely, and she sparked the imagination of the public like few people ever have, let alone MMA fighter. Pena, if you want to go to Combate, good luck with that. No one is going to care about you in Combate Americas. Hardly anyone is going to watch you in Combate. If you left the UFC tomorrow, hardly anyone is going to notice. And you wonder why the UFC was eager to give someone like Rousey the title shot instead of you. What Pena should be trying to do is angling for a big fight with someone like Holly Holm, Valentina Shevchenko or Miesha Tate because those are the fights that going to get her into the title mix. No one ever declared her a title contender after she beat Cat Zingano. That didn’t automatically make her the next title contender. Guess what else, plenty of athletes and fighters have never received a title shot after winning four fights in a row. Donald Cerrone had to win eight fights before he was awarded a title fight. It’s not like Pena has trashed the whole division to solidify her title status. Her first two UFC wins were against opponents who aren’t even ranked. Zingano was really the biggest win of her career.

Rousey getting the title fight is the right call. When Rousey was on top, everyone assumed she was going to own and run the division until she decided to retire from MMA for good. Well, that’s no longer the case. A fight with Amanda Nunes is infinitely more intriguing now that Rousey has had that loss under her belt. The holes in her game are now more apparent. Plus, there’s that big question of how does Rousey fight after a long layoff and coming off such a tough loss? That’s an extra layer of intrigue on that fight. Nunes definitely seems to have the type of striking game that could give Rousey trouble, especially if Rousey gets sloppy and chases Nunes around like she did Holm. Sometimes, I think a loss like what Rousey experienced can truly make or break a career. I think sometimes a fighter needs to lose because that loss will show what they are really made of. A loss can light a fire under a combat athlete and propel them to new heights, or it can break their spirit and cause them to lose confidence. I want to know which way the pendulum swings for Ronda Rousey.

Jeffrey Harris is 411mania’s resident Jack of All Trades and has covered MMA for the site since 2008. You can shoot him an e-mail at [email protected] or hit him up on Facebook. He also co-hosts the 411 Ground & Pound Radio podcast along with Robert Winfree. You can listen to the latest episode of the podcast in the player below.

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Ronda Rousey, UFC 207, Jeffrey Harris