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Ronda Rousey's second-round knockout loss to Holly Holm will forever be hailed as one of the biggest upsets in MMA history. Rousey was the first female UFC superstar and the loss permanently altered the course of her MMA career. Besides stripping her of the aura of invincibility she had built, the loss highlighted glaring holes in Rousey's fighting style.
While speaking to Damon Martin of MMA Fighting during a promotional event for her autobiography Our Fight, Rousey discussed the Holm fight and explained why she was unable to impose her dominant grappling.
Rousey explained her usual approach to fighting and said:
“I’m constantly trying to keep the person reacting to what I’m doing. There’s no step back and reset and start again. I was constantly always trying to keep pressure on the person and keep them reacting to me at all times. That’s why you never saw me, ‘Let’s back up and do this again,’ or 'we’re going to back up again and come back.' It was one long exchange. That was basically speed decision-making, this is what was happening.”
She then explained the impact of Holm's strikes on her ability to follow the game plan:
“The Holm fight, I didn’t really get to start my process because I literally just got hit right away, and it knocked loose all my bottom teeth and I was out on my feet from the very beginning.” [H/T MMA Fighting]
Ronda Rousey elaborates further on the impact of Holm's striking on her fighting ability
Ronda Rousey's remarks on the Holly Holm loss were heavily criticized when she attributed it to a concussion suffered before the fight. Holm refuted the remarks and asserted that she was the "better fighter" at UFC 193.
Speaking further about the fight during the aforementioned interaction with Damon Martin, Rousey assessed the technical aspects of her underwhelming performance and explained how Holm's strikes affected her cognitive ability:
“For Holm, what we trained a lot [was] doing lateral, side-to-side movement to herd her towards the cage. When I was basically out on my feet, I couldn’t see distance. There’s no depth perception when you have a bad concussion. I was completely unable to carry that out and even think coherently."
