Battle Planning: Defeating Ronda Rousey (The Spring 2013 Edition)

Liz Carmouche threatens Ronda Rousey with a brutal neck crank at UFC 157 (Picture courtesy of Esther Lin and MMAFighting.com)

In the first piece that was posted here at Stormland Fights!, I analyzed what I felt were the keys to defeating Ronda Rousey. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a fan of Ms. Rousey, but she arouses my analytical tendencies like few others! After watching her latest bout with Liz Carmouche at UFC 157, I want to revisit what I wrote almost 8 months prior. I still maintain that certain Muay Thai techniques, such as thips and elbows, are effective striking weapons to keep the UFC women’s bantamweight champion at bay, but the “Girlrilla” gave me some more to discuss that I’d like to go into after the jump.

Ronda Rousey Vs. Liz Carmouche: A Big Deal For More Than One Reason

Liz Carmouche and Ronda Rousey will be squaring off at UFC 157 for the Women’s Bantamweight Championship

Yesterday’s UFC press conference in Seattle was definitely full of news. One of the announcements was announced that that poor Johnny Hendricks would be getting passed over for a welterweight title shot so Georges St. Pierre can turn Nick Diaz into a smear on the Octagan canvas, but that wasn’t the biggest news. No, this was overshadowed by the naming of Ronda Rousey as the first UFC women’s bantamweight champion, and the announcement that her debut fight would be the headlining bout at UFC 157 against Liz “Girlrilla” Carmouche. Everybody’s excited, talking about how much of a big deal it is that women will be headlining a pay-per-view, but they’re also forgetting that this will be the first time that an openly gay athlete will be competing at the top of any kind of combat sports card. This, in and of itself, is a historic event, and it’s one the UFC isn’t even playing up.

(More after the jump)

Felice Herrig Vs. Michelle Gutierrez: A Lesson In How to Look Bad on Social Media

At Bellator 84 on December 14th, Felice Herrig and Michelle Gutierrez were scheduled to meet in an ire-filled rematch of their November 2009, which Herrig won by submission. Then, December 1st hit and everything pretty much went to Hell. On December 1st, Gutierrez announced that she had injured her hand and would be unable to compete. Herrig, understandably, was angry, and accused of “La Diablita” of faking the injury, and her manager, Brian Butler of Suckerpunch Entertainment, made allusions to “the truth coming out soon.” Sure enough, screen captures of Michelle’s twitter direct messages with her teammates were released via a Twitter account credited to “Bill Butcher.”  These screen captures (verified as legitimate by Michelle through Twitter journalist @FrontRowBrian) contained messages from Gutierrez to teammates Erin Beach and Brandon Vera that she was 22 pounds overweight, could not make the cut, and was stating that she would be claiming a hand injury was the reason she would be pulling out of her upcoming fight. This led to much sniping between Gutierrez, Herrig, Butler, and the TalkMMA Podcast’s Dizz (who joined in the discourse in an attempt to defend Gutierrez) that went on for the next 36 hours. Those 36 hours, however, were a lesson in how not to handle a bad situation, and we’ll look at it after the jump.

Good Freakin’ Grief… (Today’s Big News)

That didn’t take long, did it? Just a few short weeks, if that, since “Uncle” Dana White says there will be women in the UFC, and boom! Here we are. In the immortal words of Rener Gracie: “Dang!”  I’m going to be honest, I was all set to sit down and bash out a blog on some issues with the IBJJF that keep cropping up, but well, this took the wind out of those sails pretty darn quick! Not much else to do in this case except throw on some Clutch and go stream-of-consciousness on this sucker…  After the jump, of course.

The Ultimate Revamp

What a Fall we’re having… The Ultimate Fighter’s ratings are at an all-time low, Dana White just said that we will “absolutely” see women in the UFC eventually, and everybody’s in a furor because  Chael P. Sonnen will not only be getting a TUF coaching slot opposite Jon Jones, but also a Light Heavyweight Title shot. Yes, everybody’s talking about something, but lets look past that.  Look past the attempt at hot-shotting The Ultimate Fighter’s ratings, look beyond what many see as a mismatch on the level of Bonnar Vs. Silva, and look to the 18th edition of The Ultimate Fighter.  There is a way to try to rebuild the franchise, and we’re going to take a look at it after the jump.