Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm: Five things to know about UFC 193
By Lyle Fitzsimmons | CBSSports.com
November 11, 2015 10:00 am ET
The "most impressive" athlete in pro sports, according to Dana White, is back in action on Saturday. Ronda Rousey makes her return to the Octagon to face ex-boxer Holly Holm in front of what figures to be a curious bunch of would-be cage converts in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday.
It's the 13th bout of Rousey's pro career, and one that provides a rare glimpse at a superstar whose rocket-like ascension has made her the most recognized mixed martial artist in history, not to mention one of the most talked-about female athletes of any vocation, ever.
The pay-per-view show begins at 10 p.m. ET and will feature four bouts, plus the main event.
There's no doubt about it,” White told CBS Sports. “And it's not just sports. She's got magazines, she's got movies. It's so hard to describe what that ‘it' is. But whatever it is, she's certainly got it.”
Given that it might be a short night on the south Australian coast, here are five talking points to share with your MMA cohorts before the festivities begin.
1. Surprise … you're getting it 49 days early: The Rousey-Holm fight has long been in the works, but the actual date on which the two are meeting was moved up seven weeks after another UFC main event was scrubbed by injury. Welterweight champion Robbie Lawler and challenger Carlos Condit were scheduled to headline the Saturday show at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, but plans were changed when Lawler sustained a thumb injury.
In stepped female bantamweights (135 pounds) Rousey and Holm, who'd been slated to get together on Jan. 2, but mutually agreed to take over main event duties roughly 8,127 miles to the southwest of Las Vegas -- in an outdoor venue that holds more than 60,000 people.
If the card is a sellout, it would break the existing UFC attendance record is 55,724, set in 2011 at UFC 129 at Rogers Centre in Toronto. Because of the time diference, the fight date in Australia is actually Sunday, but it'll be shown live on pay-per-view Saturday night in the United States.
2. Rousey is a becoming worldwide commodity: Now that she's conquered magazine racks across the US, Saturday's fight is the latest step in UFC's quest to make the 28-year-old Rousey a household name on distant shores, too. It's the third scheduled match outside her native land -- she competed in Canada in her second pro outing in 2011 -- and the second in a row that's involved significant air travel from her home base in Southern California.
Rousey squashed Brazilian challenger Bethe Correia in just 34 seconds on Correia's home turf in Rio de Janeiro, an Aug. 1 matchup that's far more memorable for lead-in trash talk than anything that actually occurred on fight night. It was the ninth time in 12 fights that Rousey's opponent failed to last 60 seconds.
"Obviously, Ronda Rousey was huge for us down in Brazil," White said, upon announcing the Australia show. "She's obviously a huge superstar for us. Australia is an important market for us, so we're going to bring her out there in our first real big stadium show, and we know that she'll break the record out there."
3. Holm may be a UFC newcomer, but she's no rookie: She may not have performed in front of 60,000 fans across the entire 11 years, but Holm, 34, is a veteran of 38 professional boxing matches from 2002 to 2013 -- which yielded 33 victories and nine knockouts against just two losses and three draws.
The Albuquerque native collected an alphabet soup of sanctioning body title belts during that run, reigning at 140 (IBA, WBF, WIBA), 147 (IBA, IFBA, WBA, WBC, WBF, WIBA) and 154 pounds (IBA, IFBA). She was generally considered the best that women's boxing had to offer until a 2011 stoppage loss to Anne Sophie Mathis, a result she avenged with a wide unanimous decision six months later.
Holm last boxed in May 2013 and was 3-0 as an MMA fighter while juggling both sports. She's been MMA exclusive since July 2013 and has run her cage record to 9-0 with six stoppage wins, including a split decision over Raquel Pennington on the Rousey-Cat Zingano show at UFC 184 in Los Angeles. White labeled her the world's “most accomplished” female combat sports athlete, and suggested that the dual pedigree will present Rousey with her most significant challenge to date.
4. If you're making a bet, get creative: Pedigree or not, Holm remains a prohibitive underdog in most places, including the sports book at the Wynn Las Vegas, where a straight $100 outlay on Holm will return $1,200 in the event of an upset. Meanwhile, it'll take a straight $2,000 wager on Rousey to earn a $100 profit.
Considering that 11 of Rousey's 12 pro matches have ended in the first round -- and only three of those 11 have gone more than a minute -- the most probable chance at a payout comes from a $100 wager on Rousey to win in the opening minute, which would return a $200 profit at 5Dimes.eu.
By contrast, Holm's best chance figures to be extending Rousey into the later stages of the match, where a decision win for her would mean a $2,800 return for a $100 bet. Rousey, meanwhile, would reward bettors with a $1,500 return for the first scorecard victory of her four-year career. The longest shot on the 5Dimes board is a draw, which would mean a $35,000 return for $100.
5. It's not just a UFC thing anymore: What began as a novelty act for the hardcore octagon set is now anything but. Not only has Rousey made headlines for a months-long media feud with recently retired boxing kingpin Floyd Mayweather Jr., she's gone a long way toward competing with -- and often bettering -- the guys when it comes to the impartial observer set, too.
She became the first MMA athlete to win the ESPY for “Best Fighter” in 2015, and she grabbed a Sports Illustrated cover for a story in which Jon L. Wertheim wrote, “These are flush times for Rousey LLC. The UFC's women's bantamweight champion is cleaning out her division Tyson-style, her fights less competitions than exercises in performance art.”
Business Insider recently joined the parade as well, placing Rousey atop a “Most Dominant Athletes Alive” list that included such runners-up as LeBron James (No. 2), Serena Williams (No. 3), Usain Bolt (No. 5), and, oh by the way, Mayweather at No. 14.
“No athlete is the best in their sport by a wider margin than Rousey,” the report said. “Her two wins in the past year have lasted an average of 15 seconds. The UFC made her its first female fighter ever. In her five UFC fights, only one opponent has made it out of the first round without getting knocked out [or submitted]. She's not just undefeated; she's effectively untouched.”
Ronda Rousey explained her political views in a recent interview. (USATSI)
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