Leading up to this season of the Ultimate Fighter, UFC women’s champion Ronda Rousey was America’s sweet heart. She was a dominant champion, winning all of her fights in the first round via arm bar. Ronda and Miesha have met before in the cage with Ronda taking the first fight by submission. Since then, there have been a lot of back and forth between both fighters and their camps. Tate’s boyfriend, Bryan Caraway, had said some hurtful things towards Ronda on Twitter awhile back, claiming that, ” If she wants to challenge a man I’ll knock her teeth down her throat and break her arm.” he later apologized for his comments saying that he, “oh I don’t hit Women! But she not a woman. She gonna act like a dude she can deal w the consequences.To every1 who actually knows me knows I’m a nice guy! I didn’t mean anything bad or threatening and I’m NOT a woman beater At ALL. I just believe athetlically and on the same talent level woman can’t overall compete with men. Look at the data.”
During this season of the Ultimate Fighter, Ronda Showed her true colors. On several occasions she would smack Miesha’s hand when she would go in for a hand shake. She would also cuss her out and throw temper tantrums when her fighters would lose. Toward the end of the season, one of Tate’s fighters could not make weight. So when Tate and Rousey were called into UFC president Dana White’s office, Tate apologized for her fighter, saying she is upset with how he handled himself in the house. Rousey tried to turn this around on Tate telling her team that Tate was smack talking her own fighters.
During the season, there were several occasions where Ronda’s striking coach Edmond Tarverdyan got into arguing matches with Bryan Caraway and a few of Tate’s other coaches. He is known for having a very short temper and if you have watched this season of TUF, you can see this to be true. There were multiple times when he would try to get physical with Caraway. He was called out by one of Tate’s guest coaches, Dennis Hallman, after Edmond had been staring him down, spitting water at his feet. Hallman told him I will give you my number and we can go a few rounds sometime, Edmond responded by saying why don’t we go now?! Hallman was all but ready to throw down while Rousey stepped in between them claiming that they’re trying to get Edmond kicked off the show. If you watch the video we can see that is clearly not the case.
After Ultimate Finale 18, in which both contract winners were from Team Tate, Misha told mmaweekley.com that she got everything she wanted out of this season. Ronda showed her true colors and people can see how she really is, just a spoiled brat. With all of this aside you cannot take away from the fact that Ronda is a tough girl and she can beat the best of them. Tate will have to find a way to neutralize Ronda’s Judo and jiu-jitsu game. Her best bet is to keep it standing at a distance and to bring it out of the first round. Rousey has never been out of the first round and her cardio might not be there. She need’s to avoid the ground at all cost’s seeing as the last time ended with her arm being broken by Rousey.
Rousey’s game plan will be the same as is it in every fight, Get the clinch take Tate down and work for the submission. She has done this in every fight and no one has been able to stop her from doing this. As long as she can close that distance and get her hands on Tate she will be able to win this fight like she has done in every fight before. We will see who game plan will work out when they meet for the woman’s title.