It’s almost impossible to predict what might happen when Ronda Rousey fights Gina Carano on Saturday, considering the main event fighters have been out of action for a combined 27 years.
Based on the betting lines, Rousey is heavily favored to win, most likely because she’s one of the most accomplished women’s fighters in history after reigning as UFC champion with a long list of opponents she dominated and finished before she suffered losses in her final two fights. Meanwhile, Carano never reached anywhere near the same level of success as Rousey in the cage and her last fight in 2009 ended in devastating fashion when she was finished by Cris Cyborg.
UFC legend Matt Brown admits he’s not expecting much when it comes to the fight but he does see a path to victory for Carano even with the odds seemingly stacked against her.
“I think it’s going to be an ugly fight for the most part,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Here’s why I’m going to go with Gina Carano — I think Gina’s naturally a little bit bigger than Ronda. I think during this down time, I don’t know either of them personally, but I’m going to assume just from the personalities that I know online and the media, that Carano probably attempted at least to stay in better shape. Where Ronda I think just quit training all together and was just out and now she’s coming back.
“Lastly, Ronda is a lot more predictable. For one thing, she doesn’t go and shoot double legs. It’s going to be a judo style takedown, which is a little bit more predictable. She’s got to get in the clinch and try to attempt to throw. If Gina does some of the basic things, she should be able to mitigate that. With that said, it will probably be ugly as hell. Ugly as all hell. It’s going to be nothing to write home about. I’m going to go Carano and plus I’m a bigger fan of Carano, too, so maybe a little bit of bias there too.”
While Rousey was a very accomplished judoka, which included her winning an Olympic bronze medal, Brown argues that her primary attacks going for takedowns can be countered.
Look no further than watching Holly Holm shut down Rousey’s grappling when they fought back in 2015. When Rousey was unable to get the fight to the floor, Holm really started teeing off on her, which included the thunderous head kick that resulted in a devastating knockout.
“The thing is everything Ronda does can be mitigated pretty easily,” Brown said. “I shouldn’t say easily but you can learn pretty quickly how to not get armbarred. You can learn pretty quickly how to not get judo tossed. Holly Holm wrote the blueprint on it. I don’t think Ronda got a single takedown on her. Because judo is a specific sport where you’re wearing a gi and you’ve got the grips and you’re doing certain things with that. Where it’s transferred over to no-gi or MMA, it’s limited. Not that it’s not great for that, I love judo, I think it’s an amazing sport but only certain moves carry over. It’s a very limited amount of moves.
“So Gina has a limited amount of things she has to train for against Ronda whereas Ronda has to train to get her striking better and she was training that for a long time and it never got better. I don’t think she has the natural intuitiveness to be a striker ever. That combined with the size and just guessing Gina’s probably more inclined to stay in shape over 17 years.”
No matter the result, Brown isn’t expecting an instant classic when Rousey and Carano finally clash.
He previously compared the fight to the boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, which was a massive success in terms of viewership for Netflix, but the bout itself was rather disappointing. A huge part of that was Tyson entering the fight at 58 years old without a professional fight in decades.
It’s not crazy to think the same thing could happen as Rousey fights for the first time in a decade and Carano setting foot in a cage for the first time in 17 years.
“Good luck on that [being a compelling fight],” Brown said. “You’re going to go to bed next Saturday night after that fight and be like ‘why did I do this? I should have been asleep.’
“I’m going to be like why am I still up watching this? My kids are going to want to stay up and watch it. Unfortunately, I’ll probably be stuck staying up to watch it but there’s nothing exciting about this to me.”
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