A few "simple" things Ronda should change...but won't

So now that some of the dust has settled and the rematch is confirmed I figured I would take a moment and discuss what Ronda can change to give herself a chance to beat Holly Holm. Like pretty much everyone that watched the fight I said that Ronda needs to improve her head movement, which was not present at all in that fight. The problem is she has been "granted" an automatic rematch and does not have enough time to improve her head movement enough to beat Holm. I also question whether her current staff can get her to that level ever...but that is besides the point.

She will have 1 training camp to figure out what needs to be fixed and then implement it. She needs to take a page out of Chael Sonnens book if she wants to have a better chance at winning. Chael went into a fight with Anderson Silva and was able to land plenty of strikes and get plenty of take downs. Chael ultimately lost because Silva was a far better submission grappler; but Ronda does not have to worry about that. She is hands down the better grappler.

So what can she do that Chael did? Fight as a southpaw.

The issue she had is two fold. She got blasted with straight lefts and distance is her enemy. Fighting as a southpaw will turn the table on both of these. First, as I pointed out in my breakdown of Lawler vs Hendricks, when people are in closed guard (lefty vs lefty or righty vs righty) it becomes much harder to land that rear hand straight. Also worth noting, as Luke Rockhold famously pointed out, being in closed guard makes that high kick less likely to land (which is why Vitor needed to use a spin kick to land flush on Luke). Simply changing her stance will take away Holly's best weapons.

The more important factor, which Chael showed us, is that closing that guard greatly shortens the distance between two fighters.

Here is Anderson Silva vs Chael Sonnen and vs Nate Marquardt. Notice the distance difference just from the two stances.


Now here is a picture of Holly vs Ronda. Notice how much space there is. That is right before Ronda would flail her arms and bull rush; only to see Holly smash a left straight home and circle out of danger.



So Ronda switches to southpaw and takes away the straight left that kept blasting her and automatically closes the distance to allow her to get to the clinch more easily. Then what? Because it's not like Holly was easy to take down. First she needs to make Holly pay for dropping her hands and selling out to stop the throw, something Ronda only tried once.

Here you see Rousey get the clinch, but she is so single minded she just keeps going for the take down. She needs to smash some punches holm and make Holly respect her power a little more. Holly sold out on stopping the take down 100% and wasn't made to pay at all.



Now that might open Holly up for a throw, but for ****s sake Ronda you are an Olympic Judoka. Holly did a great job of keeping their hips seperated but surely Ronda remembers some of your other training. ASHI WAZA (Judo Foot Technique). The beauty about Judo is even if you can't get your hips close there are a ton of other techniques that don't require hip placement.

Just look at Lyoto Machida. (google Lyoto Machida Foot Sweeps for many more)




I think everyone of these things is able to get implemented into her training and would be able to help her in her very next fight, especially if she isn't fighting until July. Now why did I say she won't change them in the title? Because she won't. She will stay with her terrible camp and they won't change ****. They haven't changed anything since she started fighting, so I doubt they have the ability to. This is the same guy that after 1 round of getting her face bashed in told her "keep it up, you are doing great" My guess is if she doesn't leave this camp she will likely lose to Holly again, unless they somehow shock everyone and become a good coach suddenly.

Changing her stance won't allow her to outstrike Holly to a great degree, but it should allow her to get the fight on better terms for her. For most fighters changing from orthodox to southpaw might be a challenge but with my limited Judo training we were forced to practice every throw and move from both stances. I am sure with Rousey's Judo base she had to practice everything from both stances as well.

I don't think she needs to change a lot. She won't become a great striker until she retires and wasn't doing too bad uptil now. She just needs to "forget" that she's a great striker and can beat champion boxers and go back to finding any way possible to get the fight to the ground. And the only girl she's had trouble doing that with is Holly.

Against strikers of Holly's caliber the tweaks she needs are two major ones imo:

1. Learn how to cut the cage and not chase so she can close into the clinch without gassing out and/or getting tagged.
2. Add variety to her takedowns. As in some wrestling along with that phenominal judo base. If she could threaten with a double leg and not just chase the clinch she may have given Holly more problems and made it harder for her to move.

Not that I think she gets them in time for a rematch, but for most girls, what she has already is more than enough. For chicks with great movement and precision striking, she needs to be able to keep them in front of her without running after them.

* Edited at 11.28.2015, 5:04 AM ET *

I am curious to see if she is gunshy her next fight.