So Ronda Rousey (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) and Liz Carmouche (7-2 MMA, 0-0 UFC) are making history on Saturday night at UFC 157 at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.
They're the first women ever to headline a pay-per-view event for the promotion (10 p.m. ET following prelims on FX and Facebook). They've broken barriers, garnered fabulous media attention, and are poised to do good business, if the UFC's predictions are accurate.
Great. Let's talk about the fight a little bit.
It's a foregone conclusion to most that Rousey will win on Saturday night. As of today, she is as big as a 14-to-1 favorite to beat Carmouche, an 8-to-1 underdog. That's deep into puncher's chance territory, and against a savvy submission specialist like Rousey, punches lose steam.
Unless, however, they are delivered from top position on the mat. Lost in the gushing over Rousey's takedowns, which indeed are explosive and generally fabulous, is the threat she faces if she winds up on the wrong end of a scramble to the mat. That's where Carmouche repeatedly has excelled as a fighter. What she lacks in striking offense and defense, she makes up in ability to drag down opponents and punish them. And we haven't yet seen Rousey take a solid punch, or a series of them.
Indeed, that's because no one has had the chance. Perhaps the best candidate to test Rousey's chin and grind out a win was Sarah Kaufman. The ex-Strikeforce champ previously had outmuscled Carmouche in the clinch and went on to best Alexis Davis in a brutal slugfest. Rousey, though, tripped her to the mat and made her tap in 54 seconds.
By MMA math, that means Carmouche is merely chum in Rousey's shark tank. The bell should ring, and it should be mere minutes before the UFC belt is being Velcroed to Rousey's waist.
But consider the admittedly slim possibility that Carmouche can resist being judo-tossed to the mat. While Rousey is generally a master at initiating throws from the clinch to set up armbars, she's also been aided by opponents who are completely reactive to her. All of her opponents have made it more of a priority to stop her from doing what she wants to do rather than imposing what they want to do. It starts from the first moment of the first round: Rousey charges, and immediately, opponents are on the defensive. Of course, that's very little time to fire back. Of course, Rousey is an Olympic medal-winning judo player with tremendously refined technique. She wins because it's extraordinarily hard to damage her before she initiates the clinch. But it just takes one well-placed punch or knee to change that.
Could Carmouche come out swinging? Should she attempt to steal Rousey's initiative by powering into a takedown and doing what wrestlers have done since Mark Coleman in dishing out ground and pound? Is her power stronger than Rousey's technique?
We'll see on Saturday.
OTHER MAIN-CARD BOUTS
Dan Henderson (29-8 MMA, 6-2 UFC) vs. Lyoto Machida (18-3 MMA, 10-3 UFC): Recently confirmed as a light-heavyweight title eliminator, this fight features two big-show ex-champs with strikingly different styles. Henderson, 42, is a heavy-handed striker who's an expert at damaging opponents in the clinch; 34-year-old Machida is a technical striker who likes to pick apart opponents from distance. The big unknown coming into the fight is the effect a bad knee injury could have on Henderson, who withdrew from a fight with champ Jon Jones due to an MCL tear this past year. As recently as this past month, the former PRIDE champ admitted his knee was less than 100 percent, and against a fighter such as Machida, that could present big problems in closing the distance to do damage (or get out of the way of kicks and punches). Most fighters don't fare well when they stay on the outside and spar with "The Dragon," which means Henderson is going to have to rush in at one point and tire out the karate black belt against the cage. Whether he's fit to do so is a big question mark. The hard-headed Henderson has never been knocked out, but Machida's pinpoint striking is just the kind of weapon that could change that. On the other hand, Machida has never been smothered against the mat, and Henderson has the skills to make that a reality.
Urijah Faber (26-6 MMA, 2-2 UFC) vs. Ivan Menjivar (25-9 MMA, 4-1 UFC): These bantamweights met seven years ago in an ice skating rink in Canada, and haven't changed one bit since then. But seriously, they can't even be compared to their earlier incarnations, which for Faber was the wrestler/boxer and Menjivar the free-wheeling striker/jiu-jitsu guy. They're both highly evolved combatants now and fighting in the correct weight division, though they sit at different points in their career after so long apart. Faber has spent the better part of a half-decade as the face of lighter-weight fighters while Menjivar has been retired. The veteran returned from a long layoff due to injuries and lack of full-time fighting opportunities, and he immediately made his presence known in the UFC. He's 4-1 in the octagon fighting mostly lower-tier fighters. Faber, meanwhile, has fought nothing but top-tier competition, and he's gone 2-2 in the UFC. Both have served extended careers in MMA and are probably closer than most to hanging up their gloves. But Faber may need a win even more than Menjivar. Like the recently released Jon Fitch, he's a fairly big line item to be promoted on an event's preliminary card, and as UFC President Dana White noted, expenses are being trimmed to keep spending in line. Menjivar doesn't have the same stature and is well at home on FX or a Facebook-streamed fight card. While Faber believes he's still in the running for a title shot, another loss could be fatal to his octagon career. That means he could play it safe against Menjivar, who's a great scrambler but not as good a wrestler on the mat.
Court McGee (13-3 MMA, 3-2 UFC) vs. Josh Neer (33-12-1 MMA, 6-8 UFC): This is another high-stakes bout for these welterweights, who both hope to rebound from recent losses. For McGee, who won "The Ultimate Fighter 11" as a middleweight, it's a second chance to start a title run after back-to-back losses at 185 pounds. For Neer, it's a final chance to avoid costly mistakes after his aggressive style put two additional losses on his resume. Given the circumstances, it's all but certain McGee will attempt to exploit Neer's longstanding weakness on the mat, where previous opponents have smothered him. Neer's task will be to give McGee enough pause in the cinch to back him off, where his brawling style frequently wears opponents down.
Josh Koscheck (17-6 MMA, 15-6 UFC) vs. Robbie Lawler (19-9 MMA, 4-3 UFC): The veteran fighters promise a brisk start to UFC 157's main card, though given their respective strengths, it's a toss-up whether the fight will be a barnburner or snoozer. Onetime welterweight title challenger Koscheck has padded his record by knocking out middle-of-the-road strikers. But against Lawler, whose devastating power is well-documented, he could return to the game plan that served him well against a similar threat in Paul Daley. Rather than take a left hand that could remove him from consciousness, Koscheck took the fight to the ground and kept it there. And while Lawler's sprawl is far better than Daley's, it's a big question mark whether he'll be able to contend with Koscheck's world-class takedowns and wrestling. Lawler, as well, is a hot-and-cold fighter whose motivation seems to wane from minute to minute in a fight. This is his big chance to reinvent himself in the UFC, which he left nine years ago. But we won't know until the first few minutes where his head is.
The full UFC 157 lineup includes:
MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view, 10 p.m. ET)
- Champ Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche - for women's bantamweight title
- Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida
- Urijah Faber vs. Ivan Menjivar
- Court McGee vs. Josh Neer
- Josh Koscheck vs. Robbie Lawler
- Lavar Johnson vs. Brendan Schaub
- Mike Chiesa vs. Anton Kuivanen
- Dennis Bermudez vs. Matt Grice
- Caros Fodor vs. Sam Stout
- Brock Jardine vs. Kenny Robertson
- Neil Magny vs. Jon Manley
- Nah-Shon Burrell vs. Yuri Villefort
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