Ronda Rousey shadow boxing footage - No wonder she got destroyed by Amanda and Holly

If I remember correctly, she did try to clinch a few times against Holly. But I don't think it mattered what strategy Rhonda tried to employ against her. We talk about certain fighters being bad matchups for other fighters all the time. But there are rare examples where someone is not just a bad matchup for someone but literally the worst possible matchup imaginable for them. Holly was that for Rhonda. Holly is a natural counter striker who favors her boxing and relies on lateral movement, at least in her mma career. She likes to get girls to follow her and lead them into her left hand.

Rhonda is fantastic judoka but as such all of her takedowns come from an upperbody clinch. She never developed any kind of wrestling leg shot takedowns. In order for Rhonda to get into range to utilize her judo, she had to go through the distance where Holly could counterpunch her. And as we all know, Rhonda didn't have the striking footwork or head movement to be able to close that distance in a safe way. So as a result Holly could just move laterally around her setting traps and letting Rhonda keep falling into left hands, softening her up to be taken out later with that high kick.

Damian Maia was a terrible striker, but after he lost to Silva and dropped down to welterweight he realized that BJJ was his bread and butter and he was never going to be a good striker so he needed to revolve his game around what he's good at. He obviously improved his wrestling and mixed that beautifully with his guard pulls when he failed at a shot, but he also improved and focused that terrible striking just enough so that he could use it to setup his takedown attempts. He was no certainly no GSP, but I think this was one of the biggest reasons he had extended his success at welterweight before he got old.

Rhonda didn't have the lower body wrestling and striking transitional set up skillset to be able to do this. Miesha on the other hand was a great styles foil for Holly as she could counter Holly's punches by ducking under them and getting body locks or double-legs. In contrast, Miesha was a horrible matchup for Rhonda as when she would shoot in on her, Rhonda would use her momentum against her to throw her on her back.

These fights were just a great example of style matchups; ala how Norton always gave Ali problems, Foremon crushed Norton in the second round but Ali perfectly baited and finally disposed of Foreman. Styles make fights as we always said.

Rhonda's terrible striking wouldn't have been such a big problem for her if she could have ever developed a good wrestling shot from the outside. Her downfall really was that she too much of a specialists with her judo and jiu-jitsu and never developed a well-rounded game to compensate for at least one of her weaknesses. I think in the case of the Nunes fight that Rhonda's confidence was just so shattered that she was ripe for the taking.

 

I wonder if she has scoliosis? Her spine seems twisted and her neck in the wrong place .