UFC 184: Rousey vs. Zingano results and post-fight analysis

It’s pretty hard to say that Ronda Rousey isn’t the most dominant champion in the UFC right now. She might be the most dominant champ in UFC history at this point. Seriously, how crazy is it that she has a 16-second title defense and a 14-second title defense? That level of skill absolutely blows my mind. I’m not even the biggest Rousey fan, but you have to have the utmost respect for what she does in that octagon. I keep wanting to use the word “unbelievable”, but she continues to do it. So there’s nothing unbelievable about it.

Was Cat Zingano wrong to come charging out of the gate? Well, she got tapped in less time than it takes to write a couple of these sentences. But for someone known as a slow starter, it probably didn’t seem like such a bad idea at the time. She sure made the 14 seconds action-packed at least. But Grumpy Cat’s post-fight interview showed the frustration of a woman that’s still not quite sure what the hell happened to her. And therein lies the magic of one Ronda Rousey.

But where does Ronda go from here? Holly Holm? As you’ll read below, I do not think she should be next. Bethe Correia? That doesn’t exactly seem like a formidable challenge right now. Who else is there though? I guess there’s Cris Cyborg – but that seems like more of a pipe dream than anything right now. When a male fighter is thoroughly dominant, there’s always talk of going up a weight class or fighting a champion in another division. That’s not an option with Ronda though, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do with her.

• Holly Holm is not ready for Ronda Rousey. I get that it was her first fight and there’s nerves and all that, but she got worked over in the third round of her fight with Raquel Pennington. If a middling fighter like Pennington can do that, what would a better striker do? Or a better grappler? I’m definitely not sold on Holm  yet. That’s for sure.
• I’m not sure if Josh Koscheck suffered an injured orbital bone or what, but it certainly looked that way. He was clutching at his face for a while there and totally stopped being aggressive. Either way, that choke by Ellenberger was nasty. Foaming at the mouth? That was almost horrifying.
• The elbow that Alan Jouban landed to Rich Walsh’s dome was deadly. I flinched. At first I thought that Walsh was still game when John McCarthy stopped the fight, but it ended up being a good call. It made up for some questionable decisions McCarthy made earlier in the night, to a degree.
• The main card kicked off with Tony Ferguson beating the crap out of Gleison Tibau. Ferguson is a very good fighter that I feel is still underrated. His five-fight win streak has been quite impressive and he should get a ranked fighter the next time out. But, El Cucuy, here’s some advice – don’t use Roddy Piper catchphrases. You over-explained it. You killed it.
• Mark Munoz looks like he’s done. The retirement talk after the Mousasi fight was valid, but it seemed like he had more in the tank. Well, he just got totally worked by a welterweight that hasn’t fought in the UFC since Mickeys was sponsoring the promotion. I don’t like people telling guys they need to retire, but…it looks like it’s time.
• In addition to that, the referee in that bout should be put out to pasture. He was standing right there, with an unconscious Munoz directly in front of him. Does he stop the fight? Nope. Carneiro actually had to let up and tell the referee that he was out, and he STILL didn’t jump in right away. Brutal.
• Speaking of bad refereeing, John McCarthy did an absolutely terrible job in the Kid Yamanoto/Roman Salazar fight. “Hey, eye pokes happen.” Thanks, John. What shouldn’t happen is you asking a fighter over and over if he wants to continue fighting when he clearly can’t see, and has told you that multiple times. Your job is to protect the fighters. When a guy can’t see, he is compromised and there’s no way he should be allowed to continue. Despite that, McCarthy punked Salazar out there, making it look like Salazar was choosing to quit. There isn’t a lot about MMA that gets me riled up anymore, but that did. It was pathetic.
• Tim Means wrecked Dhiego Lima. It’s not very often that you see someone get wobbled four or five times like that in a fight that didn’t even go three minutes. Means looks a lot better as a welterweight, and I thought his patient approach was a very good call.
• The previous bout showed some patience too, but not the good kind. First off, Ruan Potts has shown very close to nothing in his three UFC appearances thus far. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Derrick Lewis was able to pound him out. But show some urgency next time, Derrick. You were laying on him like you were waiting for the bus or something. That fight should have been over long before it actually was.
• James Krause and Valmir Lazaro put on a pretty good striking battle, but Lazaro’s takedown defense made the difference. Krause showed some pretty good technique in that department and would have taken down a lot of guys, but Lazaro fought him off. Krause’s striking is odd though.
• The curtain jerker between Alexander Torres and Masio Fullen had no business on a UFC card. That wouldn’t even be on the main card of an RFA event. I understand that they want to promote TUF Latin America guys, but it was not a good fight. At all.