Freddie Roach on 'embarrassing' Rousey KO loss: 'No one taught her anything about boxing'

Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

While we are several days removed from the kick heard around the world at UFC 193, notable fighters, coaches and boxing experts continue to offer their thoughts on Ronda Rousey’s title loss to Holly Holm.

The latest to offer negative feedback is legendary boxing coach Freddie Roach, who was complimentary about Holm’s performance before he criticized Ronda.

“I saw highlights of [the fight] and not the whole thing. I saw enough to see that she got beat up a little bit,” Roach told FightHubTV. “I didn’t really expect that. I did pick her to win that fight. I thought she would get Holly to the ground. Holly is not a great ground fighter but that kick was pretty good. Holly is a good fighter. She had like 31 wins and 3 losses. She had some legit wins on that record.

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“All [Rousey] has is the ground game right now. She really needs to learn how to fight fights in the stand up. [Holm] came out a s a leftie and a southpaw and Rousey had no idea how to deal with that. It was embarrassing a little bit. No one ever taught her anything about boxing.”

The loss was so lopsided, says Roach, that he is not certain the UFC could convince their audience to watch the rematch.

“I’m not so sure if the world wants to see a rematch.”

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About the author

Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.