As someone who has trained in MMA extensively, "the greats" tend to be those who embody this for long whiles in their careers before eventually (and generally, inevitably) regressing to the mean.
Anderson Silva, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn are all common names to MMA devotees (or at least were as recently as a few years ago) , and each of them share the same trait -- they win when they aren't supposed to.
I've never been remotely as good as any of them (nor Ronda Rousey), but eventually, when you defy the statistics for long enough, you become looked at as a modern-day Superman. Anderson Silva, for example, ran a hugely long undefeated streak in which he not only bested his opponents, but often embarrassed them before suddenly falling off the mark twice, and to the same opponent.
As a result, he has fallen from grace as the once "best pound for pound fighter in the world" to almost average, depending on who you're talking to. Regardless, his fight record[1] tells the story of a man who simply knows how to win, except against Chris Weidman, and as such, is worth fearing, despite being older than average and much, much better than average.
The point that I appear to be dancing around though, is that a guy on a 10-fight win streak seems invincible, while a guy on a 2-fight losing streak seems positively wimpy by comparison. Looking at the fighter's record on the whole is probably the best gauge of their talent, but as your statistical record approaches the mean, so does the level of fear you might otherwise instill, commensurately.
> As someone who has trained in MMA extensively, "the greats" tend to be those who embody this for long whiles in their careers before eventually (and generally, inevitably) regressing to the mean.
You can make the case that both age, and the sport evolves around them and they regressed towards the mean.
Except for Anderson. I attribute his decline simply to no longer being motivated to train hard. In many of his later fights, he would "play around" and toy with fighters. With Weidman, that cost him a brutal knockout. The psychological damage compounded with his next fight, which was immediate rematch that ended up in brutally shattering his leg.
For BJ Penn, there were a lot of questions about his motivations, and by time it seemed like he was properly motivated, the sport had passed him by. Despite all that, he is one of the few fighters that have belts in multiple weight classes, and beat Matt Hughes, and Gomi in their prime (you could argue he beat the piss out of GSP in their first match, despite it being a loss). Full Disclosure: BJ Penn is one of my favorite fighters of all time.
BJ Penn is easily one of my favorites. I'm actually upset at the fact that seemingly, the more motivation he found, the more likely he was to engage in a stand-up battle, despite his obvious advantages on the ground.
Quite possibly there are factors that I'm not privy to (like age inhibiting his flexibility or something), but I've never seen anybody as creative on the ground as he was (though there are some modern fighters that are getting there), and definitely not of his time, but yeah, for a long time, he rode the coattails of his raw talent and didn't train as competitively as many of those who ultimately passed him by.
Frank Mir is, in my opinion, his polar opposite (in too many ways to list).
I actually think BJ and Frank are very similar in that their downfall was lack of training.
In BJ's case, being generally in poor shape much of the time, but mainly not focusing on his core talents and as you say, getting by on raw natural talent until that was no longer the case. The part that makes me so sad about BJ is, he was a once in a lifetime fighter, but there really aren't that many fights of his that are worth rewatching many times, really wish he would have stayed on top of his game for longer. I feel similarly about Nick Diaz - a good Diaz fight (ie vs: Lawler, Zaromskis, Santos) and a good BJ fight are just wonderful to watch.
In Frank's case, he just always gases early, often by the end of the first round. He's very talented but if you can't use that talent for much more than 3 rounds, you can't get too far.
I don't think Mir has that much ambition at being a 5-round fighter any time soon. Not that he probably couldn't do it if he set his sights on it, but I think he's reached the golden years of his career and knows it. I don't expect a Couture-style championship run, nor do I think he's particularly aiming at one.
As for his conditioning, it is generally very rare to see a full heavyweight with great conditioning. I can think of a handful, so it's not impossible, obviously, but carrying that much weight, and having to lug all that arm-weight around for each punch just seems arduous.
Nice reference to the Diaz/Lawler fight. That's literally one of my favorite fights of all time, and catapulted Diaz into a totally different tier from where I thought he was. Joe Rogan's announcing on that fight was also, ironically, perfect.
I'm not even asking for great cardio, just not atrocious! I hope Frank gets some work commentating, he's very knowledgeable.
I love the Lawler fight, but to me the Zaromskis fight was Nick at his peak, and the Santos fight showed his mastery of striking and finishing on the ground.
Joe Rogan is always great, to me he is almost the perfect commentator, deep knowledge of the sports, loves it with a passion, picks up on the smallest things and communicates all this beautifully.
Arlovski has been a master of reinventing himself as needed. I haven't seen much of the "old guard" adapt to a sport that evolves as quickly as MMA has as well as he has done so.
That said, I would probably put Frank Mir right up there on adaptability, and Mir's last fight against Todd Duffee was simply amazing.
As someone who hasn't trained in MMA, but watched some bouts from early in its spate of popularity some years ago (unconditioned and unprepared fighters, people fighting wearing the gi of their martial art and being flung all over the place by it, many victories by knockout with little grappling), it still seems like a young sport. Clearly it developed massively when the Brazilian ju jitsu guys came to dominate.
When a fighter wins with an unusually great use of a particular technique, the armbar, either a counter-method will become widespread, or if there isn't a good counter the armbar will become ubiquitous. Either way the champion fighter will regress towards the mean.
As you say, psychological dominance is a factor. And dare I say that the women's sport potentially is still in a younger stage of development. The first truly outstanding athlete to take up a somewhat niche sport, dominating over the lesser athletes currently present, is going to be hailed as one of the greats. Yet of course they risk reverting to the mean as the sport's profile rises and challengers appear.
Women's MMA is definitely younger than men's, but at the same time, the women have the luxury of not having to reinvent the wheel, as (to my knowledge) there are either none or very few female MMA gyms, so they're training with the guys, and have the same ~20 years of MMA history to draw from in what works and what doesn't.
The interesting thing about the Rousey's armbar is that everyone knows it's coming, and presumably, would look to defend against it above all else, and yet she still has an astonishing number of wins with it. A lot of that has to do with her being well-rounded elsewhere, and a lot of is has to do with the fact that she's really, really good at armbars.
Women's MMA is primarily disadvantaged by the dearth of women in college / high school wrestling, which means that most of them are starting later than the guys who graduated from greco roman wrestling and parlayed that into MMA. It's a big advantage, due almost entirely to discrimination, but one that will likely be obviated over time.
Ronda, on the other hand, grew up in an athletic household as the daughter of the first women's judo champion, and that mother routinely pushed her towards a similar path. She maybe didn't get a chance at college wrestling (or maybe she did, hell if I know), but she got the relevant training regardless, which puts her ahead of the rest of the pack.
Ronda's got a leg up, and it probably won't persist ad eterneum, but for now, and probably the immediate future, she's the best, and she's earned it. If she stops being the best, the question really is whether the talent vacuum rushes in around her, or gets occupied by the single person that beat her, and all that.
To be fair, the UFC began with no weight classes, and only started implementing weight classes as capitulation to the regulatory bodies who were trying to shut them down.
In brief, the sport was being banned and outlawed in various sates for being too dangerous, and in order to attain "legal" status, the UFC negotiated with gaming boards to determine rules. Some of those rules are stupid, some are undoubtedly prudent, but the rules largely exist because without them, the state of Nevada (and others) wouldn't have allowed the UFC to continue.
I don't have any special insight as to whether or not those gaming commissions mandate a separate women's class or not, and the UFC head honcho Dana White had previously stated that he'd never allow women's MMA in the UFC at all, but I suspect that his opinion has been changed by how competitive the women's division actually is.
I honestly couldn't say. Probably. I mean, the guy is a marketeer more than anything else, so it's worth taking his every word with a grain of salt... nevertheless, I think that when he first said it, it would have been hard to get women in the UFC that people would watch. There weren't any stars in the making. Now, there's a 50/50 shot as to what the gender of the best fight will be in any given UFC event. The Waterson/Magana fight was (in my opinion) the fight of the night in the TUF 21 finale.
Whether his change of opinion is sincere or profit motivated isn't any of my concern, but outside of Gina Carano, Cyborg and maybe three other ladies, the state of women's MMA at the time was pretty horrible, but just few years later and it's pretty great.
Yes, the general opinion has changed once it had been realized that women's bouts are not going to lose them million pounds a night.
The UFC earns money from pay-per-view, and if nobody's watching, then nobody's paying, and they either put on a much cheaper production, diluting the brand, or they lose massive amounts of money.
There are plenty of women's sports, and even quite a few women's MMA leagues and productions, so it's not like there had been no opportunities. The UFC were the first ones to be able to sell unstaged women's fights to the general public, and they should be commended for it.
It's not. While her skill level might be as high as an elite male fighter's of the same weight, her strength isn't.
Sexual dimorphism is real and it wouldn't be entertaining to see her pounded into the ground by an amateur thaiboxer -- same as it isn't fun seeing both Serena and Venus Williams being effortlessly beaten by a thirty-something nobody male tennis player
Even when you look at the obviously mismatched fights of, say, Yuki Nakai v Gerard Gordeau, it's not pretty, it's assymetrical, but the little guy won https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yko1xLF7AQU
In a complete contrast to Rhonda running her normal game against Gegard Mousasi, in a sparring back in 2012 -- as you say, not really entertaining, if perhaps instructive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9xjs2fWJEs
Yet of course they risk reverting to the mean as the sport's profile rises and challengers appear.
This is what everyone is waiting for. Rhonda was effectively raised from childhood to be one of the greats in a mature women's UFC. So in this early era, nobody can touch her Martial arts on her level is something that hardly any women encounter as early on as she did, and most of her competitors are coming at a major late-start disadvantage to her.
What's particularly great is to see how she inspired young women and girls to start training intensely now instead of finding a love for the sport in their late teens and twenites.
Similar to how Tiger Woods looked unbeatable, the "Tiger Effect." Where him just showing up to the tournament made every play just slightly worse because most likely you're playing for second place money.
Well a huge amount of sport is about mentality, so winning a nice streak really does make people invincible. Also, I wouldn't necessarily characterise Silva as regressing to the mean, just getting old.
Well, I'm a work-at-home programmer, so mostly, I gain weight.
That's a joke, mostly, but having settled in to family life and programming, I did gain a lot of weight that I'm working off at the moment. As it stands, I'm still about 20-25 pounds overweight, but I haven't trained anything seriously since I had to take the family out of my last dojo due to ... uhh, personal concerns[1], a couple of years ago.
That said, I've been scouting out replacement dojos that do more than BJJ, which are harder to find, and have found a couple that are promising to get back to. My area of focus has historically been in Muay Thai, and I've just really never been all that great at BJJ, so while I enjoy training BJJ, it's nice to have a gym that does other things that I can go to to feel "good at something".
If the "Lloyd Irvin rape scandal" is fascinating, let me tell you, at the time it was the scariest thing in my life. I have a 13 year old daughter, and as soon as I was clued in on the allegations, I mentally ran through every single event we'd attended, and tried to remember whether or not my daughter had spent any time with anyone unattended.
The answer I came back with was 'No', thankfully. As she was only doing children's classes (obviously), I would gleefully watch her every practice and give her tips / practice with her afterward.
After that, we left the gym, but in addition to whatever other allegations against him, Lloyd Irvin takes his gym contracts very, very seriously, and I ended up owing them the remainder of the contract after they sued me (and won) which was only extra painful because we had just renewed the contract, so despite only having been a month or so in, they ended up getting a judgement in their favor somewhere in the $2800 range.
It is really fascinating how many people take seriously the idea that Rousey would be remotely competitive with ANY decently trained MMA fighter. She wouldn't stand a chance. Period. End of story. Don't go there. This is nothing to do with how skilled she is, how motivated she is, or her track record. She is a fantastic highly trained mentally strong athlete. But she's not remotely strong enough to fight a trained man. Could she kick my ass? Absolutely. Could she kick your ass? Probably. But a trained guy? No! Emphatically not. With the best will in the world there are very real differences between the sexes that can't be glossed over. It may be great marketing to present her as someone who could beat guys at MMA but it isn't real.
Can you provide any examples of trained women vs trained men fighting in a martial arts competition? I haven't encountered such fights myself. If you haven't either then I do wonder, what exactly do you base your opinion on so strongly?
I find it plausible that males have some advantage due to larger bones & muscles, but there's a long spectrum of skill between "decent" as you say, and what it takes to be a UFC champion. I don't think the extra muscle & bone mass will do much if you're unable to defend the elite level judo throws.
I've done Japanese jiu-jitsu for 10 years. We train in free fighting as well as ground fighting. I'm not great by any means. I'm decent and a new person isn't going to beat me. I have sparred with low level pro fighters including one guy who fought in the now defunct IFL and one guy who made it to the semi finals of the Ultimate fighter one season and another contestant on that show. I've also sparred with a number of amateur fighters. All of them could defeat me in ground fighting and especially in sparring. They were and are way better than me.
I've also sparred with amateur MMA women and none of them could even come close to winning against me. They simply don't have the strength. I could muscle out of any move they do. They don't have the punching power of a man and their striking ability does not instill fear.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ronda Rousey could beat me in a fight. She is strong for a woman and she is in great shape. Fitness is a skill in a fight. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she could not even defeat a low level pro male fighter. She would have not a single advantage and all of the disadvantages.
I believe you have reached a conclusion that is not justified by what I actually wrote. Nowhere did I imply that the only defense against against her moves is to have more muscle strength.
The point of commenting on muscle strength is that if one is strong enough to muscle out of a person's move then they don't have to be as talented to defend against said moves. Hence the belief that many people have that Ronda would not stand a chance against even a low level pro male fighter.
I didn't suggest that that is the only defense against her moves, but you seem to be saying that no matter what move / hold someone puts on you, you'd be able to get out of it with mere brute force if only you were 50% stronger. Is that really true?
I don't know about the 50% mark, but at some point it becomes true. When I was in college, one of my friends was big into MMA, to the point of participating in organized fights and maintaining a winning record. He was wresting with another friend (much larger and stronger, but not at all involved in MMA) on one occasion and learned rapidly what raw strength does. The MMA-participating friend was completely outclassed. Everything he tried was basically just beaten with brute strength. He attempted to put the larger guy in an armbar and the larger guy basically just did a bicep curl with him.
You're also underestimating the strength difference between women and men. Pound for pound, an untrained man will be about 50% stronger than an untrained woman. With both trained, the difference approaches 100%.
Edit: Whenever I hear comments about women beating men in physical sports, I think about the Williams sisters both losing to the 203th ranked male tennis player, who supposedly didn't try very hard, and according to some reports spent the morning before drinking and playing golf, and smoked between sets.
I recognize that what you are saying sounds totally rational to you. But your position is one that is based on general ideas and (I strongly suspect) no practical experience. If you read the comments you will notice that people with direct experience are very clear on this matter. A woman like Rousey has no chance against a moderately skilled male fighter because strength does matter - a lot.
Grappling fights tend to be a gradual progression. Even in Rousey's first round victories you can see it takes a bit of working back-and-forth to get an arm-bar.
The stronger you are, the more tiny mistakes you can make before you end up in a position where they can't get out.
Perhaps more devastating is that you need less leverage to put them in a compromising position. It can be the difference of grabbing them in a slightly sub-optimal position, then muscling them into the optimal position. where if you were of comparable strength your sub-optimal grab might not be advantageous at all.
In my experience if someone has done a move on you and has it tight then it is very hard to get out of. However, before the hold is tight then muscling out of it is very much a huge concern for a lighter, weaker fighter. A smaller person usually is quicker and more scrappy. Speed is an asset but there is a reason there are weight classes. Larger opponents are much harder to defeat if both people are in equally good shape and have around the same skill set.
I suppose as programmers there is a tendency to put things into a % more muscle or % more bone mass. As an ex NCAA wrestler and combat sport enthusiast I can tell you far more goes into the equation than simple percentages of strength or bone mass.
Allow me to put this in terms you may better understand. The secret lies in the Y chromosome. This small chromosome contains the instructions for making males. The way the bones and joints are positioned give males equal in weight to a women a distinct strength advantage. Take this into account along with the male hormonal profile which is vastly different.
The most powerful thing is the male hormonal profile. Testosterone allows you to hold more muscle and less fat. It gives men that burst of strength and horizontal punching power that puts them in an entirely different league. I'm sure you are thinking of outliers, but I'm talking about a well developed athletic male, not a couch potato.
Now you see some men that seem more or less masculine and the same goes for women. Rowdy is for sure a more masculine women. I'm sure this is genetic as well as from her training. Her hormonal profile and bone structure is more masculine although in comparison to a male fighter not so much.
I have a similar background, though in an obscure style of Japanese karate. I can't really comment on ground fighting since anyone with Japanese jiu-jitsu will wipe the floor with me (probably litterally ;-) ), but I can say something about striking.
I will probably start an argument, but a great deal of strength is unnecessary if you are trying to damage your opponent with strikes. When I say "damage" I mean "cause injury". You want to deform your target so that it breaks. To do so, you need speed, not strength.
Consider, for a moment, a glacier. Because it is ridiculously massive, it has a huge amount of momentum as it creeps along at 5 cm per year. A glacier can level mountains, but anyone can stand next it it and let it "hit" them with no damage. That's because it is moving very slowly and your body has plenty of time to adjust itself to any deformation the glacier will cause.
Now consider a bullet. It has not even a fraction of the momentum of the glacier, but it can drill holes in you. That's because it is moving very quickly. When it hits you, your body deforms and there is not enough time for it to adjust before it has deformed to the breaking point.
Another good analogy is Jello. Put some Jello on a plate. If you are careful, you can push the Jello around. It deforms when you push on it, but then rebounds and moves backwards, bouncing back to its original shape. If you push too quickly, though, there will not be enough time for it to rebound and you will create a hole.
Striking in fighting works the same way. There is not enough space in a comment to explain how to use this idea to strike optimally, but most people with good technique can seriously damage any human opponent. Certainly any adult (whether male or female) that has trained for 10 years or so will be "strong enough".
Strength is important in grappling and positioning an opponent. It is also important when you are wearing pads designed to deaden the impact of a strike. If the pads deform instead of the body, then if you want to knock someone out (for instance) you need to be very strong to physically move their brain case around. Similarly, strength is important to push their muscles around to tire them.
Part of the problem is that in sport we are hoping to have a competition in which people compete but don't unduly injure each other. In such a situation, strength will certainly play a big role and so women are at a disadvantage. If we were intending to see how fast we can injure our opponent (very possibly killing them in the process), then I think it levels the playing field considerably.
Jiu-jitsu is designed to constrain striking attacks so as to make them less dangerous, so possibly it wouldn't make any difference anyway -- a very skilled striker may not get many opportunities before they are taken down. However, I think we will never really know because I don't think there is any way to be really effective in striking without intending to kill your opponent. IMHO it is not a technique that lends itself well to sports (it is worth noting that the head of my style disagrees on this point!) I have also never seen an MMA fighter that strikes well (fast enough, choosing the correct targets, relaxed enough, etc). I don't think I ever will because such a fighter would injure too many people to get fights.
The no-injury situation is probably more beneficial to males in a male vs female matchup indeed. Even the strongest male fighters seem to have a serious problem with getting hit by groin strikes, while I haven't seen any targets on females of comparable weakness. There's of course eye gouging, but that goes both ways and isn't as easy to execute.
There certainly is this spot on the female crotch area anatomy that is at least as sensitive as in us, males. Curiously enough, young female fighters are as a rule completely oblivious to this, until the day they get hit in sparring.
Generally speaking targets of choice IMHO (roughly in order):
- knee (easy to hit, easy to break)
- shin (if the person is standing on that leg it's easy to break)
- ribs, breast bone, collar bone (big huge target that is hard to move out of the way. Ribs are easy to break. A collar bone break will effectively stop an opponent from using their arms, though it is hard to hit)
- neck (hard to hit but if you miss you've got collar bone and jaw as backup. Some fighters handily give you their jaw to protect their neck. If you hit the neck with a clean shot, there will be no fight...)
- head (hard to hit, but you can break it in two with a clean shot... seriously).
You will notice that all of my targets of choice other than neck are bones. Soft tissues are not a good choice for a striker because they absorb damage too easily. Also, they don't incapacitate the opponent immediately. Often the person can go for a good 10 seconds before they even realize that they are damaged.
Furthermore groin and eyes are very hard to hit. The groin is easy to protect and the eyes are just too small. You could hit them against an untrained fighter, but you can do just about anything against an untrained fighter.
You will also notice that apart from the head and ribs, none of these are targets that are used often in sports matches. It's obvious why. If a sports fighter walks out, notices that his opponent's leading leg is too straight and breaks the knee on purpose... well that person isn't going to get invited back to most tournaments.
Also most sports fighters put too much power into their strikes. If you actuate your muscles all through the strike, it slows it down. Rather than thinking about powering through an opponent, they would do better to think of their limbs as whips. You accelerate quickly, using every joint as a way to multiply the speed. When you hit, you then need to align your bones so that the rebound force is directed along the longitudinal axis of the bones. Each bone must be aligned in an arch leading to the ground so that you take the brunt of the force through your skeleton not through your muscles.
It takes a long time to master this technique (and I have not done so ;-) ). One of my instructors could break the ribs of his opponents with kicks even though we wore padded fibreglass armour. We also wore plexiglass helmets. The people who first started using these (one generation before me) sometimes broke them into pieces while sparring so a rule was implemented to tell people to be careful when hitting the head ;-)
Like I said, I don't really know how far you would get against a well trained ground fighter who is good at avoiding getting hit badly. I think the odds are in favour of the ground fighter winning the fight if they don't make any mistakes, but it would be very dangerous against a good striker.
I'm sure there are lots of people who think the above is complete poppycock ;-) In fact, it is testament to HN etiquette than someone hasn't said so up to this point. For me these days it is occasionally fun to think about this stuff, but I have been "retired" from karate for nearly a decade now. Hope someone will find it interesting even if they don't agree ;-)
An exhibition match involving a man verses a woman was sanctioned between Lucia Rijker who was then undefeated and Somchai Jaidee who considered a journeyman amongst his division, they both were almost identical in weight apart from the arbitrary weight discrepancy of 1 pound, during the opening minutes of the first bout Rijker proceeded to stand virtually toe-to-toe with Somchai whos strength advantage was already apparent, however Lucy shows impressive speed, Lucy then makes several attempts to kick Somchai to which Lucy bounces of him and loses her balance on multiple occasions due to the lopsided physical superiority of Somchai, Lucy however did not make it to the end of the fight when she attempted to brawl the stronger male Somchai and was knocked completely unconscious, many believed that it served as an example of why a women should not be sanctioned to fight a man(hungdaddy patriarchy), the match was since then dubbed the "cook the man some eggshibition".
The physical differences between the genders is very large. I remember hearing about a study on grip strength - the average man was roughly equivalent to an elite female athlete.
Has rousey ever used a judo throw in a match? The #1 time judo throws are used is when another person is trying to judo throw you(that is, in a judo competition)
As has already been mentioned, yes, she's used judo throws extensively. Her judo is exceptional. Her mother was AnnMaria De Mars[1], the first American to win the World Judo Championships.
Beyond that, Rousey herself won the bronze medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in judo.[2]
Her mother is also pretty damn smart, and I would expect the daughter inherited the same intelligence. That is a pretty nasty combination of brawn and brains.
This is true, of course. But to me, the most impressive thing was how well female fighters technique is now. Even as recent as 5 years ago you could watch two females fighting, and they'd be fighting "like girls" to put it frankly, but now, their style is pretty much like any male fighter.
I think some people rolled their eyes a bit when females first entered the sport, but now a female fight on a card is 100% legitimate and they are as great to watch as any other.
She's undoubtedly an outlier but I think that has more to do with the lack of parity in women's MMA. Men's MMA has had decades to reach it's current level of competition so it seems unfair to plot the performance of Ronda against all of MMA.
Isn't this basically the plot of Million Dollar Baby or Maximus's first fights in Gladiator? The fighter in both movies wins all their fights very quickly. The difference is that in Gladiator, he is told to slow down and give the crowd a spectacle. In Million Dollar Baby, nobody wants to fight her without extra participation money.
I wonder what kind of pressure is being applied to Rousey by her manager, agent and fight organizers?
Well, I heard an opinion that the thing is pretty similar with what you said about "Gladiator". Basically, professional sport is business. For it to be profitable it must attract people (basically, to sell tickets, abut perhaps even more importantly — sell adds for higher prices). And to attract people it must entertain them.
All this Ronda-centered marketing stuff (like this whole thread, actually) seems to do her well, but otherwise it's just not interesting to watch a fight that lasts for 15 seconds and ends with submission by the armbar. Every time.
> it's just not interesting to watch a fight that lasts for 15 seconds and ends with submission by the armbar. Every time.
Three of her last four fights were KO or TKO. She can win with more than just the armbar.
That said, I think you're underestimating the amount of people that tune in on the potential to see her lose. Rousey's skill attracts a lot of fans, but her attitude and status have definitely attracted plenty who would love to watch her get beat, as well.
First of all, that's false. Top male fighters, in an actual match, would injure her. It would not be entertaining, it would be almost disgustingly brutal. One need look no further than what Cristiane Justino - using performance enhancing drugs - did to her opponents, to understand. Pound for pound, top male fighters are going to be between 50% and 100% stronger than Ronda.
I'm curious when this fantasy is going to stop being promoted? It seems to commonly be in every thread about her, across every site.
Even more interesting, is to analyze the origins of it, why it exists, and why people feel the need to keep it going. I can't decide if it's mostly fetish (a male fantasy of being dominated physically), or something else entirely.
This is even true in mental sports like chess.
Even after accounting for attendance rates the difference in strength is humongous.
It seems men are just better at competitive activities although it's very unpopular position to take.
while arguing for opposite gets you shunned even if all you need to prove your point is high school level math and a rating list with attendance rates.
In MMA it's not even interesting as men are way stronger, have better hand-eye coordination and way less body fat. I doubt she would have a chance again a local amateur small town champion let alone anyone competitive.
Not disagreeing with you at all, but I just want to throw in the caveat that at least in the more mental games, we have no idea how the competitive landscape would look if we had a culture that encouraged as many girls to put as much into competition as we do boys.
Humans are cultural creatures, cultural thinkers and movers, and in everything from chess to MMA we benefit greatly from growing up in a culture that is tooled to support our specific strengths. Not everyone gets that chance, and not all groups equally.
>>Not disagreeing with you at all, but I just want to throw in the caveat that at least in the more mental games, we have no idea how the competitive landscape would look if we had a culture that encouraged as many girls to put as much into competition as we do boys.
Well, we don't but attendance rate are already taken into account. There might be other cultural problems though like being in a minority being difficult or more likely girls just doing worse in competitive social environments which are typical for sports.
One can even argue that girls already have advantage in selection: assuming equal talent distribution in boys and girls populations and assuming most talented children from both make it to the competitive chess, the girls should do better (because less of them are selected and therefore more talented ones on average).
If anything it's likely that once selected (that is starting to play competitively) the environment is less welcoming to girls. On the other hand girls get more opportunities than boys (dues to women only tournaments, titles, world championship).
While I think the hypothesis that environment is less welcoming and thus inhibit development of women players I have trouble seeing how this can be tested.
Aptitude testing shows[1] that while females tend to cluster more towards the average, male populations produce more outliers. There are both more male geniuses and male imbeciles than their female counterparts.
This is the product of the different evolutionary strategy for males and females, the males being high risk/high reward, the females being conservative/average. I don't have a citation for that.
I don't know if chess is a very good example since in that case there was a woman who was very clearly an outlier (as is Rousey) but able to compete against men, and reached a top ten ranking (Judit Polgár).
I am saying women do way worse on average. Judith Polgar did well but was nowhere close to be say world championship contender and she received more training as a child than about any man in history at that time. Judith was also the only Polgar sister who reach world class strength.
These days Hou Yifan is close to world class strength and it can be argued that her level of play suffered because of politics (it's important for China that she plays in women team and playing vs weak competition isn't the best for the development). Maybe she had top 10 potential as well.
It's definitely less disadvantage in chess than it is in MMA but it seems the effect is still there.
Gender stereotypes and attitudes being what they are, he can either look bad for beating up a girl or look bad for getting beat up by a girl. There is no good outcome.
Pound for pound, top male fighters are going to be between 50% and 100% stronger than Ronda.
Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with.
No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin.
I can't believe this is even an issue of debate or misunderstanding on HN.
Go to any gym and watch a 5'6", 165 pound guy bench press, and then watch a woman at the same size with the same experience do so. Men can also jump higher and run faster than women at exactly the same physical measurements.
"Strength and muscle characteristics were examined in biceps brachii and vastus lateralis of eight men and eight women. Measurements included motor unit number, size and activation and voluntary strength of the elbow flexors and knee extensors. Fiber areas and type were determined from needle biopsies and muscle areas by computerized tomographical scanning. The women were approximately 52% and 66% as strong as the men in the upper and lower body respectively. The men were also stronger relative to lean body mass."
> No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin.
This is indisputable.
However, strength only in one factor, and there are many that contribute to the success in an MMA fight.
There are also key differences in how you measure strength and how that matters in a fight.
Daniel Cormier has significantly higher stats around olympic lifts, and routinely manhandles his opponents. Against former champion Jon Jones, however, Jones matched him, and was able to out wrestle the former olympian.
Saying it more plainly, just because men are naturally stronger than women, doesn't mean that men are naturally better fighters.
Rousey's best shot against a comparably sized male fighter, would be an armbar. She is a relatively poor striker. It's why there's even a discussion to be had about her beating male fighters her size - her specialty around armbars. It's pretty obviously understood what comparable male fighters would do to women fighters like Bethe Correia. Everything else would give Rousey a lot of problems. Her ability to grapple with a comparable top-ranked male fighter that is even just 1/3 stronger would be very problematic.
She would have no chance of getting a male fighter to tap out with an armbar. All male fighters know how to defend against an armbar and they are so much stronger she'd never keep one on against a male opponent.
Getting a pro male fighter in an armbar would be unlikely for Rousey however if she got in position I wouldn't bet against her.
An armbar works on the principle of leverage, in this case the bicep muscle vs the same muscles used in a deadlift. If Rousey had a male fighter in an armbar the strength difference is not going to be the deciding factor. Also all fighters know how to defend an armbar, RNC, triangle etc yet they still tap to them.
No. It isn't just a 'contest of strength.' Leverage is very important which is why men can tap out other men. But a certain amount of strength can overcome mechanical advantage and men have that much more strength.
> Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with.
No, a 180 pound man would absolutely destroy a 180 woman. It's just the way it is. To a large extent it's because the only weight in your body that's doing 'work' are your muscles, and women biologically have higher body fat percentages than men, including in top trained athletes in weight-division based sports. That difference can be quite substantial depending on the sport and the level. For normal people the average difference is about 11% (and you wouldn't see it, either, a man at 12% bodyfat looks very similar to a woman at say 18 or 20%) Meaning for a say a 180 pound individual at a 10% differential in bodyfat percentage, we're looking at a difference of 18 pounds of muscle. That's multiple weight divisions, a huge difference in division based sports like most martial arts. In other words you can have more muscle while being the same weight. A lot of this has to do with different steroid hormonal levels, like testosterone, and genetics, which dictate the ability and propensity to build muscle and store fat, which differ quite significantly between sexes.
Beyond that there are differences in hand-eye coordination between men and women, which I don't know exist for top athletes (although looking at women in sports like football or boxing that I know pretty well, it's often considerably worse with all due respect, so I'd assume technically there is a difference, too in general, although there are exceptions), and then there's aerobic fitness related things where men have better oxygen uptake, bodyweight adjusted, too, more hemoglobin mass etc.
But yeah outside of sports, a lot of it is weight based. You simply won't find guys the size of Valuev or Anthony Joshua in the opposite gender.
Anyway the whole 'beat a man' thing with Ronda is just marketing. The fact we're talking about this is exactly what it gets her: a ton of exposure even on platforms totally non-fighting related. Everyone within their own sport knows how big the gap is. She's sparred with tons of guys and has experienced getting toyed with. And that is true for many other sports. Some women have tried in various sports, tennis being the most common one, where you ended up with the nr 1 woman in the world not being able to win a single set against her brother who plays for recreation at college level. In fighting we've had Dutch pride Lucia Rijker, one of the greatest female fighters of all time, undefeated, actually trains Ronda in her striking, and she got knocked out unconscious by a complete and utter nobody easily and quickly, she never tried again.
What do you think if we train men and women from the moment they born together ? Is there any scientific evidence that can prove women are absolutely weaker in terms of physical strength ?
I mean by looking at the information you provided like differences in body fat percentage , I am not convinced this is absolute differences.I don't know how to put it , let me say it , what is the reason to such huge gap for example in body fat differences percentage ?
What if we didn't have separate championship league for every sport between men and women ? I think some kind of "law of survival" would help women's to increase their power in long term.
p.s. by the way I am just CS student and I don't have any information about these kind of topic . but I think centuries of suppressing woman make them weaker in some area's , which I think would be fixed by just society which do not differentiate between men and women.
Top male fighters are likely, actually wary of facing her for the same reason as they would be wary of facing a Royce Gracie. Much of her style negates much of their advantage, and despite everybody knowing full well that she's probably going to win with an armbar, it seems that nobody's yet figured out a way of preventing her from landing the armbar that they all know to look out for.
That most of her wins are obvious, and still unpreventable is what makes her scary, and there are indeed plenty of guys she could beat in the octagon.
On the whole, I definitely agree that many of those guys are probably paying her lip service, and that the level of challenge goes up incredibly when facing guys, especially those above Featherweight, but to be fair to her, I actually like her chances against much of the field in fly and bantamweights, minus those at the very top, perhaps.
Rousey won't fight Fox Fallon, a transgender female MMA fight who went through puberty as a man, so Rousey herself recognizes men have a biological advantage in the sport.
I agreed that men generally have a biological advantage but some real reasons Ronda won't fight Fallon Fox are: she fights at featherweight, she is not in the UFC, she is an obscure fighter that has only fought very low level opponents in small organizations, and she is just not a good fighter at all.
>The effects of hormonal therapy over time, in this case testosterone deprivation and estrogen supplementation, are not completely understood. However, what is clear is that transgender individuals that underwent surgery after puberty will retain some male features, such as increased height. Male–>Female transgender patients tend to retain more muscle mass than female–>male transgender patients gain, suggesting that some gender-specific attributes remain. Whether effects such as height will prove beneficial in MMA like they do in other sports such as basketball remains to be seen. Another question is if the fighter is completely transgendered. Taking estrogens without castration will leak out testosterone that can maintain muscle mass. Furthermore, how much estrogen is being taken? If it’s not enough, then muscle strength can be closer to male levels
That may be, but at the same time I would think there are only a limited amount of things that would affect your performance in the ring, at least to a significant effect.
How important is bone density though? Do we measure bone density of males, and exclude those who hit the genetic lottery and have super high bone density?
In the male league, do some fighters get to refuse to fight others based on bone density differences? I'm thinking not, which is why this restriction seems artificial, sort of like grasping for straws to find a difference (though I'm open to being proven wrong).
I conceded that men do have an advantage. I don't know whether or not Fox does or doesn't, but men, generally speaking, have an advantage in a full-body sport like MMA.
That does not discount that there are men currently competing in MMA that Rousey has a realistic and good shot at actually beating.
The average man has weight and musculature advantages over Ronda in the same way that Ken Shamrock, Grizzly Pardoel and Patrick Smith have weight and musculature advantages over Royce Gracie. Despite that, Royce has beaten them all.
Gracie did this at a time when no one understood BJJ. When that advantage was removed, as when he fought Matt Hughes, he was completely dominated. You will no get anywhere these days on pure technique. You also have to be a very gifted athlete. Ronda would be destroyed by any male in the UFC or Bellator for that matter, regardless of weight class.
To be fair, there are still people Royce Gracie could beat in UFC. Not everybody has mastered BJJ defenses, and it isn't a "solved" problem set.
Matt Hughes was one of the best in the world, and much more in his prime than Gracie for that fight, and also a student of BJJ.
Yes, men have a distinct and pronounced advantage against any woman, but I flatly reject the notion that any amateur MMA practitioner could best her in the ring, especially given the breadth of talent in MMA. Watch any UFC prelim, and I guarantee that you'd find at least a couple of guys who you'd certainly bet money to lose against Ronda. Beyond that, there are top guys that don't have a good defense against BJJ, and they're often matched up against like competitors for showmanship, and if you think there's no way she could sink an armbar on any of them, I just flat out think you're wrong.
Top male fighters are not wary of facing Royce Gracie. Not even 10 years ago were top male fighter wary of facing Royce Gracie. No top male fighter would be wary of facing Ronda due to fear of losing to her. They'd be wary of facing her due to being called a brute and woman beater. She would absolutely destroyed against a top male fighter.
Yes, top, even middle of the road, male MMA fighters would destroy her. But the comment might be alluding to top fighters from other disciplines, specifically boxing, specifically Floyd Mayweather, who would absolutely get dominated by her.
I think the quote (cannot find the video) come from the thought of a non MMA fighter trying to fight her in a MMA match. I thought it was a Sports Illustrated video where she explained it further.
Yes, of course. But the difference is that Ronda would also decisively win a street fight with Maywheater - something that women are not supposed to be able to do and hence worth noting (and wonderful to see if it ever happened).
Uhm, it's not like they are going to make a street fight, you know. And, by the way, street fights are quite different from MMA as well, and are done with pepper sprays, shockers, sucker punches, fingers to the eyes, teeth, bats, rocks, whatever… It really isn't for sure that an MMA champion would win a street fight against "just somebody".
So, again, this argument is worth nothing and whole point is simply about marketing. As well as that "women are not supposed to be able to do" thing. I'm quite sure there are plenty of women which would take me in a fistfight, because, well, they train for that way more than I do. But if you are comparing men against women in the same sport… well, it's already discussed.
Why would a street fight be a wonderful thing to happen? Also, I find it highly unlikely that floyd would lose in a streetfight, but I have no basis other than my gut for that one. Submissions, which is rondas specialty over floyd, mostly only helps in ground fighting. Once someone in a streetfight gets on the ground, its over, because you can kick them in the head or push them over when they try to get up.
Because Floyd is a douche who beats women up and this would be one woman that would most likely kick his butt. I am talking about a one-on-one scenario. I know its juvenile but I would personally get a thrill out of seeing Floyd beaten up by a woman.
I think its kind of sexist, to be honest, saying that "men are scared of her", like that is unusual or 'a thing'. Of course they're scared of her - she's a very badass fighter. But the fact that she's a woman seems to be some sort of reason for that fear - as if a strong, fierce, dominant fighter can't be female.
As much as I am defending the notion that Rousey could beat a man with which she had a good matchup, the assertion that she could beat a top male champion is indeed far-fetched.
As has been mentioned all over this thread, sexual dimorphism is a real thing, and not just something men made up to repress the lowly women.
A strong, fierce, dominant fighter can absolutely be female. A strong, fierce, dominant fighter that is female and that could beat someone larger is exceedingly unlikely, and has absolutely nothing to do with sexism whatsoever.
I would not be so sure or call it a fantasy. Ronda's grappling is at another level. Watch footage of her sparring with BJ Penn (the extended version). It is with the Gi and obviously not an actual MMA fight, but gives you an idea of what that looks like if she could take it to the ground early.
There are various other videos of her rolling with other men (albeit bigger ones) like Mousasi and Luke Rockhold, and it is anything but competitive.
I think the situation is pretty comparable to Serena Williams, who would win against most "regular" men, but not be able to provide a competitive match against roger federer.
> I think the situation is pretty comparable to Serena Williams, who would win against most "regular" men, but not be able to provide a competitive match against roger federer.
Well what is regular? A regular professional would completely dominate her. Here's an anecdote of the only time she tried against a man.
> During the 1998 Australian Open, sisters Serena and Venus Williams boasted that they could beat any man ranked outside the world's top 200. The challenge was accepted by Karsten Braasch, a German player ranked No 203 (his highest ranking was No 38). Before the matches, Braasch played a round of golf in the morning, drank a couple of beers, smoked a few cigarettes, and then played the Williams sisters for a set each, one after the other. He defeated Serena, 6-1, and Venus, 6-2. Serena said afterwards "I didn't know it would be that hard. I hit shots that would have been winners on the women's tour and he got to them easily."
We're talking about two women here who ended up nr 1 players in the world (in fact Serena is the nr 1 right now, today), and were already top 10 players at that time.
Of course if you mean by 'regular' to be just anyone, like me... then sure, but if you pick the average person from the street they'd lose to a 12 year old talent, let alone someone like Williams.
As for Ronda, it's pretty well known men hold back when they spar her in all these videos for sure. She could absolutely trash us, but a professional male fighter wouldn't have a hard time at all, and he doesn't have to be world class. It's just the way it is and there's no shame in that. Just like there's no shame in a 10 year old losing to an adult, or a fully able-bodied beating a physically handicapped person, or a 15 year old beating the old and frail Mohammed Ali he is today, so what, there's a grand biological/physical difference there that has no basis in merit or talent or will and that is unsurmountable, nothing to be proud over for the winner and nothing to be ashamed over for the loser.
I'm not making an argument that she isn't an extraordinarily talented fighter. That she beats the best male fighter in a ~135 pound weight class, is a fantasy however.
She won't face Cyborg due to a difference of ten pounds. That tells you everything you need to know. A top-ranked male fighter in her weight class is going to have an even greater physical advantage than what those 10 pounds give Cyborg.
How we went from arguing about "Top male fighters are wary of facing her." to "Beating the best male fighter at ~135" I don't know. I am not arguing that she would, just that it is not a fantasy. If she can clinch and take it to the ground early in the round, she can definitely submit top guys.
The Cyborg thing: Ronda is the champion, Cyborg should come down to her weight, not the other way around.
She does not routinely win against top male fighters.
And if you watch the YouTube videos of what you're talking about, her training sessions against men, they are not going full-steam against her, and they almost always have very sizable weight advantages - which is rule #1 of what you never do in fighting (and why Ronda hasn't yet fought Cyborg). In the case of Ronda vs Cyborg, you're talking a few pounds of difference, and she refuses to fight due to that gap - so you're trying to tell me she's having no problem against guys 30 and 40 pounds heavier in training (fails the logic test right off).
They're both champions actually, and it's more common for a fighter to go up than come down. Like say in boxing, the most powerful boxer in the entire sport right now, Mayweather, who'd been an undefeated world champ for almost two decades and the biggest star and earner in boxing, moved from welterweight to super welterweight to make the fight against Canelo. For Canelo to come down to welterweight would've been ridiculous and it'd never have happened.
A catchweight fight could be reasonably expected in this situation, but coming down an entire division is very, very uncommon. The weird thing is that MMA doesn't seem to have a division in between theirs. For example in boxing you have lightweight which is 135, then you have super lightweight at 140, and then welterweight at 147. But Ronda fights at 135, and Cyborg fights at 145, there's no 140 in between. A catchweight fight at 140 makes a lot of sense, I think, coming down 10 pounds is crazy. Going up 10 pounds is also a lot, although we mustn't forget Ronda competed in the olympics (a much tougher competition in the sport she dedicated a much bigger part of her life to) at 154 pounds, so this notion 145 is suddenly too much, and that Cyborg just has to come down to 135 is pretty silly but whatever. It's not uncommon to compete at a lower weight than the olympics, but 20 pounds is a gigantic difference and it says she could easily go 10 pounds back up. And for a catchweight bout it'd only have to be 5. If that doesn't happen I think it's clear who doesn't want to take the fight. (Ronda)
Ronda's argument counter-argument is that if Cyborg was not on steroids, she could make 135 easily. Cyborg has mentioned multiple times she can make the weight cut, yet it has not made it happen.
Steroid weight gain (for professional fighters) is mostly water weight which is relatively easy to shed for the weigh in (I referenced Canelo just now, he routinely sheds 15-20 pounds and regains it within the span of 24 hours for his fights, because it's all water weight, he doesn't have to lose fat or muscle to do so). Beyond that steroids simply help you recover better and build muscle easier, but you still need to put in the work, and you can't get bigger on a caloric deficit no matter how many steroids you use. So steroids for fighters aren't commonly associated with weight issues (they do outside of fighting, for hormone treatments or bodybuilders).
Beyond that I don't know if Cyborg's on steroids, I don't follow her much and I wouldn't be surprised if she was, but I don't see her weight as being remotely related. Again, it's extremely untypical to go down in weight classes, if that was supposedly indicative of steroids I can literally name a hundred fighters who'd be suspicious from the top of my head.
Anyway yeah she said it a couple times that she could do 135, yet it hasn't happened because she wants the fight at 140 at a catchweight I suggested (I'm just reading this now). I mean Cyborg just a few years ago won gold medals at at 74kg or 163 pounds. Now she has to drop down to 135 pounds from there, or 10 pounds from her 145 fights this year? Instead of Ronda agreeing to go up 5 pounds to 140, when Ronda competed just fine in tougher competitions at 154 before? So supposedly she's got the self confidence to fight anyone, to beat men, to even beat elite female boxers like Laila Ali IN BOXING, when Laila competed up to 175 (I mean it's just a total joke), yet Ronda doesn't want to go up 5 pounds for Cyborg to go down 5 pounds and make the fight happen?
Both Rousey and Cyborg are champions, of bantamweight and featherweight respectively. There is no rule that one must go down in weight classes; Pacquiao, for example, went up.
Cris Cyborg is not the featherweight champion of the UFC because there is no featherweight division in the UFC. Rousey fights in the UFC. If Cyborg wants to fight Rousey, she has to come down in weight, leave Invicta and join the UFC.
Correct. She beat Carano and eventually the league (Strikeforce) went out of business and got bought by the UFC. The UFC absorbed all fighter contracts. There is no 145 womens division so she had to cut to 135 or leave. She decided to leave. Now she is the 145 champion of Invicta (an all womens league) that is basically owned by the UFC now as well.
If shes smart and wants a massive payday she will cut to 135 for the Rousey fight.
Err...no. You don't actually. The reality of MMA and boxing is that you go up or down if the risk reward makes sense and you can physically handle the weight change.
I don't believe this for a second. Sparring is VERY different from fighting and those guys are taking it easy on her. This kind of thing is great for marketing to fans who don't know the sport but it's a fantasy.
This shouldn't really be the discussion. It's kind of a side show. She is an extremely accomplished fighter and deserves to be respected as such.
But...
He's absolutely right. She wouldn't stand a chance against any decently trained MMA artist. Men are indeed enormously stronger and strength does matter in MMA.
The bias that men tend to be physically stronger than women, pound for pound? The 50-100% estimate is probably an exaggeration, but from my quick glance at competitive weightlifting results, 25% seems well-supported.
According to the Wikipedia article of Olympic weightlifting world records, the 69kg men's record total lift is 359kg, while for women that record is 286kg. That's about a 25% difference.
Of course, world records might not be the best thing to look at, since the variance among the genders is probably different (although this discussion is about top MMA fighters, so it's fairly appropriate). Also, you can probably find very different numbers by looking at different weight classes and events.
Just a side note, "175%+" is actually a bit of an underestimate.
As an example, I'm 175# and can bench press 285# (3 whites) but I'm not a "strong male athlete" by any means.
Athletes who train for strength (linemen, powerlifters like GZCL) are putting up 2x their body weight or more, and that's just for bench press alone which is usually the lightest event.
Deadlifts and squats can hit 4x body weight which is just insane.
So your theory is that men are not almost always substantially stronger than women pound for pound?
It's not a bias, it's extremely well understood human physiology. Men and women are in fact very different in the strength department, men are vastly stronger.
The problem with saying "men are stronger than women" is that we're not dealing with men and women, we're dealing with a specific woman, and a potential specific man.
This is not about the aggregate, it's about the specific.
I would put Rhonda's ground game up against plenty of bantamweight men. Striking is a different story, of course, but god help any fighter that hesitates and lets her attach on to anything. Watch her spar with Uriah Hall, and how easily she takes down an extremely athletic man with a 50 pound advantage.
I don't think this fight would ever happen, but dismissing Rhonda Rouseys potential with biological hand-waving is an insult to everything she's accomplished. And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't even particularly like her.
In other cases, when talking about specific individuals--in particular, Olympic weightlifting record-holders--the gender difference is still very obvious.
MMA is extremely multi-faceted compared to weightlifting. There's a reason the Gracies dominated the sport for so long, and it had nothing to do with any kind of extraordinary upper body strength.
Let's be realistic here. Men are just way stronger and better fighters. It's the same story in other sports. For example Serena Williams: the best tennis player in WTA history by huge distance and she would be smoked by any men who is on ATP list even if overweight and smoking between games.
I don't think TJ Dillawshaw (current Men's Bantamweight champ) vs Ronda Rousey would be a decisive victory for TJ.
That said, the comparison is made, simply because there aren't any Women to compare Rousey too. In our need to classify how good Ronda Rousey is, we want to now compare her globally.
Ronda has said herself she does not want to fight men. I concur with her, it's bad for the sport, and she has nothing to gain from it.
TJ would beat her senseless and in very short order. Ronda is a fantastic athlete, surely the most dominant fighter we have ever seen, but she would be slower, weaker and vastly inferior in striking and wrestling technique. She would have absolutely no chance.
With all due respect, but you have no idea what you're talking about. TJ would absolutely murder Ronda.
There's been plenty of discussion about this on Sherdog and /r/mma... and even some historical precedent. I recall seeing a video awhile back of a then female undefeated kickboxing champion vs a journeyman fighter and while the female fighter showed more speed and skill, the physical advantage made the fight extremely lopsided.
If Ronda tries to stand and fight TJ, like she fought last night, he would defeat her extremely quickly. Compare their movement and footwork in recent fights -- it's not remotely comparable. It might not be quite as one-sided if she can bring it to the ground, but I'd still expect his strength to dominate before long.
It's disappointing that we'll probably never see Ronda realize her full potential because she doesn't face enough competitive pressure.
There's some analysis on the fivethirtyeight post that is linked to, and clearly this is a topic that interests a significant chunk of the visitors to HN.
The plots in the post make no distinction between male and female MMA fighters. I'm not seeing the "gender studies" aspect that you refer to, and that bit of negativity is a little sour.
Anderson Silva, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn are all common names to MMA devotees (or at least were as recently as a few years ago) , and each of them share the same trait -- they win when they aren't supposed to.
I've never been remotely as good as any of them (nor Ronda Rousey), but eventually, when you defy the statistics for long enough, you become looked at as a modern-day Superman. Anderson Silva, for example, ran a hugely long undefeated streak in which he not only bested his opponents, but often embarrassed them before suddenly falling off the mark twice, and to the same opponent.
As a result, he has fallen from grace as the once "best pound for pound fighter in the world" to almost average, depending on who you're talking to. Regardless, his fight record[1] tells the story of a man who simply knows how to win, except against Chris Weidman, and as such, is worth fearing, despite being older than average and much, much better than average.
The point that I appear to be dancing around though, is that a guy on a 10-fight win streak seems invincible, while a guy on a 2-fight losing streak seems positively wimpy by comparison. Looking at the fighter's record on the whole is probably the best gauge of their talent, but as your statistical record approaches the mean, so does the level of fear you might otherwise instill, commensurately.