MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good | Remembering 'Rowdy' Ronda Rousey, The Most Important Woman In MMA History

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

Ronda Rousey was a pioneer of MMA, almost single-handedly changing Dana White's mind about women fighting in the UFC, and becoming one of the first truly household names in the sport. On top of that, she was also a damn good fighter, having set a number of records that still stand today. Host Jed Meshew is joined by Mike Heck, Alexander K. Lee, and New York Ric to remember the career of Rousey — and to make the case that she is one of the most important fighters in MMA history. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow Eric Jackman @NewYorkRic Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer,

but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. We are back. My name is Jed Meshu, a writer for Mn MAA Fighting.com.

The best website in the whole damn world. Make sure you'll check that out because today we are back with another episode of Damn. They were good. And it's a big one. It's an important one. Because today we are inducting the first woman into the DTWG Hall of Fame.

And we're, what better place to start than with the woman who started it all, Ronda Rousey, Routy Rhonda Rousey coming in talking about her today, and I'm doing it with some of my absolute favorite people in the world. We have got a bevy of individuals from MMAFinding.com, greatest website in the world, Mr. Mike Heck, A.K. Lee, and New York Rick, Eric Jackman Ricky joining us for this one. Fellas, thank you for joining me on this, because this is a very big pod for us, I think.

Yeah, I'm very excited to be here. I almost could not miss the Ronda Rousey episode. This had to be the one. I couldn't be more excited to have you here because I want to get right into it. Is Ronda Rousey the most important fighter in UFC history not named Hoyst Gracie? I think, you know, when I was looking at him,

my categories, that's where I was going to go. I think in terms, if we're talking in terms of impact, she's she's one A, one B. She's up there. She's, she's one of the most important fighters who's ever competed in the octagon, competed in MMA. The door she opened for women, the people she inspired to believe that they could do this as a career, the opportunities that she created for herself that others have now followed the game plan. Hoise is a good shout because I didn't even actually consider that, which is, you know, faulty on my part. But yeah, I'm, I'm right there with you. Yeah. You got it. The originator, yeah. It started at all. Fair, fair enough. But outside of Hoyce, you're talking rarefied air, the impact that she had on the sport and on the UFC in particular.

Yeah, Rhonda, Rhonda's up there. If she's not one, she's one B, one C, you know, we're talking Hoyce, Connor, those levels. Yeah, you said it, I feel, sorry, I didn't mean to cut off my best friend like that. Oh, it's all right. We spoke simultaneously. We spoke simultaneously. I know. I defer to you. I mean, it was, it was in the universe. It was the way it was supposed to be. You should just finish his sentence if you were really best friends? You would have just finished his sentence. Yeah. I mean, I'll start in AK. Yeah, maybe AK will say the same thing. We'll have a friend's for a moment right away. But I feel like there are certain terms in this sport that are used way too loosely. And I think Pioneer is probably one of them. And

Rhonda is the absolute definition of a pioneer. I mean, she broke the doors down. She changed everything. She made Dana White change the way he approached the entire business and his entire company. Like Dana White was a guy that said women will never fight in this organization. And then Rhonda Rousey just got so big, got so many eyeballs on her that she made Dana White change his entire approach of how he conducts business and how he runs a fighting

company. So yeah, she is an absolute pioneer. She is, if she isn't the most important person in UFC history, she's in the top three at worst. So yeah, absolute pioneer. What she did, I mean, the UFC Dana White should just give her royalty checks as much as possible because without her, we're not on ESPN. We're not on ESPN. We're not watching 43 cards a year. It's, Ronor Rowsey is a big part of that.

especially because she was like the easiest person in the history of the sport to work with like Dana said it all the time she just never cared about her she's like yeah whatever the UFC's contract is I'm cool with it so she'd absolutely be getting on the back end here yeah it's it's crazy how the crossover appeal we just never seen anything like it I mean there had been some big stars I mean before her like you know you'd go Brock Lesner but Brock of course had become big in pro wrestling first he brought if anything he brought the crossover like he'd already crossed over to the mainstream and kind of brought that to the UFC, like they didn't turn him into a crossover star, or they didn't turn themselves into a crossover star through the UFC, I should say.

Chuck Liddell, I remember, had some sort of mainstream cash. There had been people who had flirted with mainstream fame, with notoriety, Tito Ortiz, you know, been in movies and things like that and made movie appearances, but still relegated to that corner of like, oh, MMA fighter, cage fighter. Ronda Rousey was like, I mean, from the beginning, even before she got to the UFC, there was this buzz about her. You know, there was this, there was a lot of like talk about like, oh, could she be the one to, again, make Dana White, you know, allow women to fight in the UFC? Could she be the one to, does she have that ability to become like a box office success,

not just in, you know, as a fighter, but as an athlete. And I don't know if she was the first, I remember the SPs, she won like the best female athlete or something. She was the first, I'm maybe I'd probably do that. I can't remember. I'm, I just remember her first time she was mentioned the SPs and won something. It was just this huge, crazy, like, she was such a sweeping star in that regard. So, yeah, maybe we don't see, you know, how the door can be open for the economist Gregor and other people who have crossover, if it not for Ronda Rousey. Because it was amazing. It's not even that long ago, but it's almost like, to a much, on a much larger scale, like, Lynn Sanity. If you know, Lin Sanity was like the, well, the greatest two

weeks of this Asian, North American man's life. But if you look at it, people like, what that happened? Like, that's not real. And I feel like, and I'm glad we're doing the show, Jed, because I feel like some people are doing that a little bit with Rousey, almost forgetting just how insanely famous she was and to go over the show. She was a bigger star than Connor McGregor. And how good. She was a bigger star than Conner McGregor. Yes. And how good she actually was.

Because there's a lot of people now who are like, ah, she was just famous and she was just first. And other people paved the way for her. And there's some degree of truth to all that. But I think I assume today's episode will sort of dispel, I think dispel some of those myths and just remind people of what was what. Yeah, I think we will definitely get into some of that because that's, I mean, that's obviously the purpose of this. That's what we're here to do. We're here to contextualize. We're here to make people remember that at one point in time, Ronda Rousey was the most famous athlete in the history of this sport.

Because like, I don't know. I don't know what y'all's relationships are with your non-fighting people. But like my family does not care about fist fights. That's just not a thing that they have any level of. interest in. But when Rhonda Rousey was at her peak, I would get text messages from my sister. My sister loves me and cares, you know, about my interest and stuff. But she'd never be like, hey, there's a fight night card this weekend. Like, what's, tell me what's going to happen. But she would text me the morning after because Rousey was all over the thing because she

submitted Katzingano in a minute or whatever. And then there's the 15 second vine that you can see of her title defenses. She was like, so this. She's like a, she's a badass, right? I was like, yeah. And that's certainly none of my like female family members have ever reached out to me about fighting or any of my, my women friends have ever reached out to me. I'll occasionally get some dudes who would be like, Connor McGregor's dope. But she crossed so many, so many boundaries and sort of reached out in a way. Did you guys have similar experiences with your family and friends?

Or was, did she pass the mom test, Mike? I mean, she definitely passed the mom test. A lot of my family does, they don't really watch MMA. Like my dad, we've watched a couple of cards together. My mom doesn't really care. My oldest brother, one of my older brothers we always watch. And when we have watched something like horrible happens, like Anderson Silva breaks his leg or the next card we watch together, Chris Widman broke his leg. So anytime he watches a card, it's never a good thing.

And then my little, and then my little brother, as you. you would sort of guess Jed is in respect. He watches the UFC so we can bet on it. He likes to play the ponies, so to speak, and likes to get my input. And I tried to tell. As good reason as any. Yes.

But I have had friends. I would go to like parties at friends' houses. And for the first time in a long time, I would have like female friends come up to me and talk about Ronda Rousey. And, oh, she's a badass. And they would talk about like they would joke around. Like these girls would like, joke around and start wrestling each other.

And then they would call out like, they would pretend to do an arm bar. And they'd be like, Ronda Rousey. And they would like pretend to do an arm bar. Terrible technique. And it had no like it didn't hurt at all. So yeah, it was just funny. Like Ronda just became sort of even if you never watched Ronda fight, everybody knew who she was. And everyone knew she had that one move.

Like she had she probably, she had like the first legitimate finishing move in MMA history. Whereas like this is her. finisher. This is the DDT of the UFC. Like, Rhonda hits the arm bar. You're done. Like, this is a straight cheat code finishing move for MMA and for the UFC. And Ron did that. And it translated, man. Even women who didn't watch her fight, like knew she had the arm bar. They saw enough highlights to know.

And yeah, she transcended. And I had people who I never thought would ask me about fighting or the UFC asking me about Ronda Rousey and then just saying like, Ronda Rousey and putting on a horrible arm bar to their friends while they were drinking. years and stuff. Yeah, there was a stretch there where people like, I don't have a long story, but just on average, you know, people who aren't familiar with like a fighter schedule, like they only fight once every three, three, four months, whatever. Like, if you would just mention this is a UFC card coming up, they're like, oh, is Ronda Rousey fighting?

Is Ronda Rousey fighting? Like, that's how, that's how big her name was like, how much it was circulating and getting around. So like, that's all they cared about. And again, you had that again, you had that, oh, is Conne-Morger fighting? It's, you know what I mean? That's, that's, is Nate Diaz fighting, as Horre Mazadol fighting. But I can recall. call like the first time that was really a common thing among people I knew who were just like casual sports fans and almost non-MMA fans was yeah is ronda rousy fighting on this card that you just like mentioned and I'm like that's pretty crazy yeah you called it the mom test I've in the past called it like my casual fan test and it's two tiered right there's there's a level where a certain

awareness like permeates and it'll be are you watching the UFC card this weekend or is there UFC this weekend. That's that's kind of the barometer. That's tier one. Tier two was the Connor fight, the Ronda fight. That's, that's where it becomes a thing, a cultural kind of phenomenon akin to, you know, boxing fans, the Tyson fight, that type of deal, the Mayweather fight. Ronda was the Ronda fight and people and people outside the orbit would ask me, where can I watch the Ronda fight? Are you watching the Ronda fight? That type of stuff. That's when it was very clear to me that Ronda is transcending, is becoming something more than just UFC headliner and more Supernova,

mega star, casual appeal type of fighter. I think transcending is, transcending is the right word for her because it's, I think we take it for granted now because of what Connor became and Connor surpassed her level of fame. But just,

it was so wildly unheard of at the time to be like, oh yeah, Ronda Rousey is on, first, first MMA fighter to win an Sby, like AK said. I think she won two of them, actually. You know, she's acting in movies and doing all these things just before Connor started to really ascend into that role.

Because, again, remember, Rousey's career was basically done in 2015, or at least her career at the top. You know, Connor didn't truly ascend to send to his maximum capability until he won the lightweight belt in 2016. So in some ways, Roussey was there first. Connor just passed. I think that gets forgotten because of a lot of the stuff that happens afterwards and sort of the very fast decline, which we're going to get into with all the categories. But before we get to the categories, I want one more thing here. Ricky, you promised me takes.

You promised me that you had takes on Ronda Rousey. And so I want to open the floor to you. I don't need your biggest take. Maybe try, maybe, you know, if you've got a take that doesn't step on the categories that we're going to get into, but just fire it. a take at me about Ronda Rousey. All right. There's one take that didn't fit super cleanly into the categories. I was going to- That's exactly what we're looking for then.

I was gonna do it on the back of one and really shove it in there, but I'm glad you're giving me the forum. Famously, I picked Ronda Rousey for comeback fighter of the year in 2016 on the MMA hour. We have awards and I selected Ronda Rousey for comeback fighter of the year for 2016. It has followed me throughout my MMA career. I want to take a minute to kind of explain. explain that just for a second and then kind of see if you guys agree with the justification here.

Defend yourself. I love defending yourself. I will defend myself. I'm in take court right now and I am making the case. All rise. You guys can be judge and jury. So from the outside, after the loss to Holly home, it was very clear to me that Ronda Rousey did not want to fight anymore.

Extremely clear. Like, I don't think it was very uncertain. Now, I think there were a lot of factors at play that were kind of pushing her into trying to compete. There was obviously so much money to be made. It was one loss. She's such a megastar. There's obviously a lot of justifiable reasons for her to compete. It was very clear to me that she did not want to fight.

It was very clear in the interviews that she had given, how depressed and how in such a bad place she was at the time after. Some of this is retrospect. Some of this is things that she's talked about after. But some of this was at the time as well. And then famously went into the Amanda Nunes fight, not doing it. media. To me, there's a certain level of selflessness. There's a certain level of bravery that I attribute to Ronda Rousey for knowing that her heart's not really in this, and she knows that she really does not want to do this, but is in such a position that the fans, the organization,

all the forces outside want her to do this, her family, her friends, whoever is around her And everybody that's in her orbit is kind of pushing her to come back when I don't think that she necessarily wanted to. And I think there's a quick dismissal, especially because of how petulant she could be and how she treated the media and really didn't want. And at times was very difficult to deal with that people want to attribute that to her personality and make it something about how she felt about other people. I truly believe that it was something that was inside her. I feel like she wasn't at peace and wasn't coming to terms of what she was facing. So as we saw in the fight, you know, as she walks in there, she got obliterated. She didn't want to be there.

A better fighter just absolutely destroyed her. But I think my takeaway from that was that this was somebody who didn't want to be in there and did it for us. Not necessarily me, you, the MMA media, but did it for the people. Did it for the people in her life that wanted her to be in there and wanted to be an example of, sometimes you face your toughest thing. The Holly home fight was the toughest thing she's faced in her career. And you still get up and dust herself off and compete. And I think if she had left after the Holly home fight,

it would have been a different kind of narrative. And I think she was trying to combat that. I just don't think she was equipped to. I don't think that she had that in her. But to me and the reason I selected, I gave her that award at the time, is there is a certain level of bravery. And if we're thinking about like a Hollywood movie,

the chips are all down. The stakes are stacked up against our hero. And sometimes they walk into the fire anyway. And sometimes they don't come out and they're not ready for it. And they know that it's instant doom. That's how I viewed that fight for Ronda Rousey is that she knew that this wasn't going to go well. She knew that she wasn't prepared. She knew she was facing a better fighter.

She didn't want to be there. But she took that risk anyway and did it. Now, certainly there's monetary gain. But I think there were a lot of people that wanted her to fight and she didn't necessarily want to. And she did something risky. and quite frankly brave in my opinion battling mental health struggles and overcoming them and stepping in there i almost think basically where i'm at is i think the result of that fight wasn't that significant i really don't i think that fight was lost the moment she signed the contract i don't

think she wanted to be there so the fact that she got battered by amanda nunes to me was in the story of that it was okay this hero kind of dusted herself off and got back in there and it was a bad effort and she didn't want to be there but i'm okay with that i the act was enough for me. And that, and that's where I ultimately landed. Walking to the gallows with your head held high. Indeed. Yeah. I, I can appreciate your argument. It's a compelling take. It's probably still not right. But, you know, just because, like, in a vacuum, it's fine, but there are other fighters who

also came back in 2016 that are probably more deserving. But I do agree in the broad part of that it was a brave act for sure. I don't know if it makes you the comeback fight of the year, but I think I'm with you and that she, I don't think anyone was under any belief that she was coming back to really win. But she still made that walk for one reason or another. So I'm with you on that.

I don't know if Mike or AK want to excoriate you for take Central over here, but I can at least see what you're saying, bud. I can accept that. I picked Razzie to beat Noon's, noon so there you go that's all you need to know did you really I think that I don't know if I want to see let's see this would have been

what year was this 2016 2016 so I don't think I was with MMA fighting yet I don't think I was with MMA fighting yet so yeah I wouldn't have been writing the predictions oh you know it's probably on the score dot com I think if I I think if I did yes I believe there is not a great website

not a website worth visiting MMA fighting dot com greatest website in the world This is just. Well, hold on. Shout out to Nick Baldwin of the score.com. I mean, listen, there are reasons to go. I do like Nick. We all love Nick.

So, I know, he is the man. He is the man at the score right now. But yes, I used to work there. And I did, if I recall, I'm sure it's somewhere in the web. I, there is in writing that I picked Ronda Raz to be in Manitunes. I mean, you did not have to admit that on this program. We would have never found that. We're healing.

I'm proud of you for doing it. We're healing. I feel like we're healing. Yeah. I feel closer to you, AK. Thank you for sharing that. Mike, did you also pick Rousey? No, I will say two things.

One, like, even back then, like I was doing interviews for different websites, and I got to interview Amanda Nunes for the first time heading into that fight. And maybe that was probably the first time where I felt coming out of an interview that the person I just spoke with is going to destroy the person she's going to fight. Like I knew, like I felt like Nunes was going to win. but as soon as I finished that like 15 or 20 minute conversation with her, I was like, oh my God, she's got to kill Ronnerousie. Like I just had that feeling in the back of, like in the back of my mind. Ron has got no chance to win this fight. Mand is just going to run her over and that's exactly what happened.

The second thing I will say is I remember, I don't think I watched it live, but I remember the award show that year, New York, Rick. I was listening on the podcast. I was making a long drive. your take wasn't great but I understood where you're coming from and I don't think you deserved the flack that you got from from Helwani if we're being honest I thought he was a little too hard on you uh I think you deserved you know maybe like a like the like the comparison like a punch in the shoulder maybe but it seems like he called the dogs on you to just just just wear you down and

this has never left you man this is like the first email you sent aerial just never going to go away and I didn't think it was that bad like I understand day where you're coming from, you took it a different direction. And what people don't understand about these awards sometimes is they are open to interpretation. You can interpret them however you want. Like, come back of the year. It doesn't have to be, oh my God, this guy was getting killed and then he came back and landed a right hand that ended the fight. It could just be like, like you said, someone who probably shouldn't come back, maybe not for the right reasons, but knew they were going to lose, but still like just wanted to make the people around them happy. And the fact that she made that walk,

knowing she was going to get obliterated is, you know, it was a brave thing. So I don't agree with you, but I don't think you deserve the, uh, the verbal beating that you received not just then, but still today. It's pretty crazy. I can live in that world. I mean, it's just safe to save myself and Rhonda. We're both martyrs. And that's okay.

Yes, that is, uh, that's definitely true. Obviously you were martyred for things. Jesus. All right. Before we get into the categories, as I do every episode, I'm going to do a brief rundown of the career, just so we can remember it before we start talking in detail. And honestly, this is one of the easiest ones we're ever going to do.

Last time, last episode was Donald Saroni. It is impossible to briefly run down Cowboy Serooney's 100-fight career or whatever. But Rondo, relatively tidy. 12 and 2 overall record in the sport. She came from a judo basketball. background took the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, which was the first, I believe, I'm not 100%. Let me make sure before I completely talk out of my own ass here, was the first woman to win to medal in the Olympics for the United States.

She then retired from judo not long after that, moved into MMA. She worked with a bunch of judo people in M.M.A., Edmund Tavirdian, Mininghambury, in that group and really became a star super quick. You know, she had a couple of amy fights, and then she was in Strike Force Challenges almost immediately for her career. She started her pro career in 2011. Later that year, she was doing Strike Force challengers, submitting Sarah Delio, Julia Budd, and then she fought Misha Tate for the belt because Strike Force knew what they had with her.

She got the Bannam White belt in her Bannamway debut, and then off to the races. one more fight in strike force before the UFC absorbed them. And then the big thing, she fought Liz Karmusia UFC 157, the first female fight in UFC history. She is the woman, as we alluded to earlier, that Dana White changed his mind about women's MMA for. And then she rattled off. To be clear, she was promoted to the UFC's ban and weight champion. So that was a title defense for her. She did not fight for a vacant belt against Liz Karmuzh defended her belt and routed off six of those.

before the Holly home fight, which I'm sure we're going to talk about. And then it was over. It was over almost before it began. From 2011 to 2016, that one fight, the Nunes fight, and it's out. Now she's into pro wrestling. But left probably, I can't think of anyone, even Hoyst Gracie, who had a more impactful career given just how short of a career it was. Pound for pound, if you're condensing value plays, the most valuable fight. that's ever been for my money.

So that is the rundown. And now we can get to the categories, guys. Ricky, I'm excited for you. It's your first time here. So we're going to let you lead off. I normally lead off our category discussion. But, you know, you're here. You're a man with takes.

You're a man with a lot of opinions. And the first award we go to, it's the Mount Rushmore. It's the big one. It is the four quintessential fights for somebody who doesn't know anything about Rondorowski. What are you showing them? What are they?

Give me your four, Rick. Yeah, I'm going to go I did these in chronological order because the way I think of this is like you have to kind of build the catalog like it can't just be like picked out it kind of has to be like a progression for me

Misha Tate first fight in strike force that's where I'm starting off the rivalry, the attitude, the star making performance. After that I think it was clear to everybody including Dana White who said women would never fight in the UFC that Ronda Rousey was something special and needed to be elevated and needed a platform in order to continue to showcase her skills.

And that leads to there was a fight in between there. But then my next one in the curation is Liz Karmouche, UFC 157, the very first women's fight in the UFC, Ronda Rousey versus Liz Karmouche. As you mentioned. I'm going to go ahead and say that every one of us will have probably both of those. But if you don't have the Liz Karmouche fight in your Mount Rushmore, you're an absolute moron like any i will just say that blanketly so i hope i'm not calling any of you morons but it's the most important female fight in the sports history yeah absolutely as you said you know she started as a champion there so there's a lot of there's a lot on the line she's

not just coming in to grab a belt she's the champion so she has to put on the performance that a champion would and earlier looked terrible for her um she was in real trouble karmu shot her back and locked in a two those were you guys were you guys all watching that line because that was insane. We were like, oh, my, it would have been the most MMA thing in the world for this to be the woman. Here it is. She's going to be the standard bear. And she just gets neck cracked out in the first minute.

And retrospect to Karmouche, who's a great fighter as a world champion today, I don't know what would have happened to women's MMA. It still would have come around, I think, but I don't know how much, how different the arc of it would have been if she takes out Rousy that first flight. different. Yeah. To the UFC's credit, I will say this for them because they don't do this well all the time, but they built, they did not build Liz Karmuch into a star beforehand, but they gave her time in the buildup because of what this was and showing that she's a,

uh, was the first gay fighter in the UFC and showing her background or history. They, there was at least something to work on if Karmu should pull off that neck crank, but it, I think there's a case that it could have been wildly different. 100% agree with that. I think you're right that they built Karmouche enough that they could use this.

But man, that Ronda Rousey like experiment could have just died, you know, in the womb. That would have been rough. The next two are not as historically significant, but Alexis Davis, the 16 seconds of just pure beatdown domination at the time where like it's fitting on every social media platform you have. Like it's on Instagram. That was insane. And then to me, there's a lot of different places I could have gone here. I was thinking about home. But I ultimately went with Zingano.

And the reason I went with Zingano was because it was after the Alexis Davis fight. It was the next fight. And she had just beaten her opponent in 16 seconds. And Ronda Rousey follows that up by beating her opponent in 14 seconds. I don't think we'll ever see something like that ever again. I don't think we'll ever have somebody who you know what they're coming in there to do, just dispatch their opponent that quickly. and is just going to take you out that quickly again.

Like, that's where my head started to like come off my shoulders at a certain point where Ronda Rousey. Like everything just got gradually more progressive to that point. So those are my four. Mike, what about you? Are you in full lockstep? I mean, some of these I think we're going to have a big overlap here. Yeah.

I mean, at first I was looking at it like, I was looking at it through the lens of Rick where I was going to go in chronological order. but then I decided just to rank like the top two and then just kind of bounce around a little bit. So Rousey Tate won is is there for me because that changed everything. The amount of eyeballs, the amount of attention that fight got was just gigantic. And like we talked about earlier, that's the reason why there's women fighting in the UFC. It was because of this fight and the attention that it got and Rousey treated Misha accordingly.

And it started this big rivalry, maybe the biggest female rivalry in the history. history of the sport. Obviously, Liz Karmouche won, is number two for me because history was made. Doors are broken down. We had women fighting in the UFC. Number three for me, I went back to the Sarah DeLelio fight because I was thinking about what would have happened if this fight happened in like, like if Rousey broke into the sport, like at the age she was then, but this is like 2019, 2020, the kind of reaction that that finish would have gotten. Like how would, how, how, how, how, How would we view it now? Like we knew right then that this is the beginning of something really special.

People might have known that beforehand, some of the people closest to her. But those who are watching that Challenger's 20 card, watch that and we're like, oh my God, like, we might have something here. We might have something that could change everything. And then four for me, it's got to be, to me, I was like Rick, like, there was a lot of different options. I end up going with the Holly Home one because, I mean, it's the most iconic. It's not good for Rhonda, but it's the top five most iconic moments in the history of the UFC.

Just the build to the fight, the face off, Rhonda getting all aggressive up there. And then just the way that the fight played out, Holly just putting the boots to her and then literally putting the boots to her in just one of the most violent finishes you'll ever see. And it was such a big fight. Is it a big stadium, the reaction? I mean, it was the legit changing of the guard in women's MMA was that foot across. Ronda Rousey's face. And Holly became a star. And Holly, to me, from that fight, became the Tom Coughlin of M&A.

Like, the Giants won the Super Bowl. They beat the Patriots. No one thought it would happen. And Tom Coughlin got to keep his job for like five extra years because he beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl. That win aged incredibly well. And that win continues to age well for Holly Holm because she had 111 title shots after that no matter what happened in her career.

So, yeah, to me, that's got to be number four. Like, you got to take the good with the bad sometimes to tell these stories. And that is its own probably six chapters by itself in the Ronda Rousey story. Okay. Holly Holme, I definitely made my list. I kind of did a reverse chronological order. So Holly Holm, that was the first thing I thought of. It's just you just have to watch it.

I mean, it is a fascinating, wildly entertaining fight. Again, if you're a Ronda Rousey fan, maybe not so much because, yes, she, gets her ass straight up beat in that fight. Like I had not watched it in so long. And obviously I just rewatched it for the show. And I was like, I was like, did she have any moments in this fight? I'm like, oh, no, she's just getting. She did not.

Just straight. Everything Holly Holmes threw landed. Every, every counter, every setup, everything. When she was aggressive, she landed. When she was countering, she landed when she was, it was unbelievable. And of course, everyone forget. Nobody can forget the, um, the Matador moment. You know, she just ducks a wild like Ronda Rousey, you know, punch.

And you, you just, don't see stuff like that at the UFC level in a championship fight or or in any UFC fight. So that, that was crazy. So you have to have that. And it's, it's, it's so wild, though, that, like, Hollyholm has not really beaten anyone great since. Petsko Heia, respect, respect, Petsco Hea. Megan Anderson. You mean before either.

Yes, yes. Megan Anderson, Vichel Pennington, who she'd already. She's her best win. Who she'd already, yeah. I mean, I mean, maybe I can call Rocky Pennington. But she'd already beaten her.

But she'd already beaten her, right? I mean, she'd already beaten Rocky, so we'd seen that. And then she'd be nailed on it. Yeah. Also, Rocky wasn't as good then.

Yeah. Holly's taken a lot of heat. Let me just say, let me just say one thing. Fighting admirably and capably against Chris Cyborg, I would consider that a great performance,

even though it's not a win. I'll take that as like showing where you're, showing where your level is, but yes, to your point, like the W's on the ledger. She's bad. She just hasn't actually. She just hasn't gotten the win.

Yeah. GDR. GDR. I mean, GDR, you could, I mean, that's a very, very close fight, plus including the two, like, post-bell fouls. It was an awful fight, though. It's not a great fight either. But, I mean, arguably, she could have been a two-division champion, right? And she was that close, you know.

So I had to have that at the top list. Yeah, it just has to be seen. I feel like it's crazy. It's like even if, I feel like it'd be really interesting to show people that fight first. Let's say someone had never didn't know anything about Ronda ride, like heard of her, but had never actually seen her fights. Reverse career her? It would be. It would be fascinating to start with that fight and then kind of go back because there is a story told in that fight.

I would include, of course, the pre-fight video packages as well. There's a story told in there. And then to go backwards and see why it was such a big deal that she lost would be really interesting. So the Zengano fight also made my list. Again, I thought Zangano had not a chance to beat her, but I'd certainly talk to myself into the narrative. And she had such a great story. And it's like, oh, she's fighting for so much and she's been through so much. And like, this is her, this is someone who's been to the fire.

What can Ronda Rousey do to her? I think there was a great piece. I wish, I'm sorry, I should remember the writer on ESPNW. I'll find it now a great piece on her. And I probably read that before. And I was like, yeah, like, yeah, this is, you know, how can you, how can you beat someone like that who's, who's, who's been through this? And then she lost in 14 seconds, again, which is, I think more, says more about how great

Ronda Rousey is. Maybe the moment was a little too big for Zengano at that time. But that was incredible. I actually put the Tate two fight on there, the rematch. Probably just because it went longer than two rounds. It wasn't longer than two rounds. It was, and, you know, I still consider Tate a true rival. I still consider her a true rival, even though, you know,

both fights definitively went Ronda Rousey's away. I like that she did have one person who people are like, oh, yeah, give, you know, give Tate another shot and maybe, you know, maybe she'll pull it off. And they deserve to fight also on the U.S. platform. You know, their first fight was big, but then to get to get to, run it back on a pay-per-view, a USC pay-review was a really big deal. So I put that on there. I didn't put the Karmouche fight on. I have my reasons. They're not good reasons, but I have my reasons. I had to slide in. I'm fascinated on why you made a bad choice. I had to slide in the

Sarah Kaufman fight because I, well, I'll allow me, I'll probably get to elaborate on this more. But okay. I did. No, I had to. This is personal for me because this is the fight where in the free fight promo, which is readily available on YouTube. Showtime, this is what happened on Showtime. So it's on their official channel. You can just search Kauffman-Rousy Showtime ad or just Coffin-Rousy Showtime. This is the one where they had this very slick video package before where both

women were in latex suits. And I remember thinking this fight was such a big deal. And I'm like, this is so cool. And also thinking that they would never do anything like this with men fighters. Like, for better or for worse, they would never do this for the And both women, God bless them, they've rocked it. I mean, Sarah Kaufman, I'm sure today, well, I've talked to her about it. And she kind of just laughs about it.

I'm sure if she had a choice, she would rather have not worn a full latex suit to promote a fight. But I love that. The fight itself is also interesting for me because, like, this was still before I knew Rousey was invincible. And I thought like, Kaufman had a chance. I thought like, oh, she's a great striker. Just avoid getting taken down. And as we found out, that's a lot easier.

That was a lot easier said than done. Rousy was an absolute bull early in her career. you could have great take down defense. It didn't matter. She was going to find a way and finish you. So the fight itself is actually somewhat entertaining, even though it lasted about a minute. And one more tidbit.

Our own, our pal, Esther Lynn, was at the shoot. I don't know, I don't know exactly what she did, but she did help at that Showtime shoot. So if one in one runs in Dester, feel free to ask her stories about the Ronda Rousey, Sarah Kaufman, latex sex suits advertisement. I will, for sure. make sure to ask about that.

Man, A.K., you're always bringing such difference to this podcast. That's why we love to have you on. I'm sorry that you're wrong. So obviously, Liz Carmouch is on there. My list looks a lot like the correct list. It's Misha Tate won. It is the fight that started everything. She became champion.

She became a star. All of it. It's Liz Karmouche, the most important fight in female MMA history, bar none. you have to have it I was also just like if you it's a fun fight it's interesting because of all what happened in it and it was just so wild to watch that real time

like I just never thought women were going to be in the UFC and then to see it happening is insane Katzangano fastest finish in a women's title bout UFC 184 I think that's that's just it for me and then Holly home you have to

I think you have to have Holly Home in there as well because even though I wanted to put the Bech-Gohea fight in there because, but we'll talk about Betch in a different category later, Holly Home is the fight. Like you cannot tell the story of Ronda Rousey as an MMA fighter and not have that in there. It's the fight that everyone knows. Anyone who knows anything about fighting,

they might say, oh yeah, Rhonda used to beat the hell out of people and, like, submit them really quickly. They don't know who Katzenganu or Alex Davis, any of those are. they all know that Holly Home kicked her in the face. Like everyone knows it. So you've got to have that. So honestly, this was like maybe the easiest one of these I've ever done. Because to me, those four are, they are it.

There's, it's, I don't, I don't see how you can not have any of them. You all made compelling cases for your, your wrong choices. But those are the four. That's the Mount Rushmore that we're inscribing on the wall. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, what? Sounds like Ojo. Play Ojo? Great idea.

Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun! Play Ojo! Boarding will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close you, call 1-8665-3-1-2-60 or visit

comics ontario.ca. Unwrap Holiday Magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. from festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Which brings us to our next category. The I am not impressed by your performance award, obviously named after one George St. Pierre,

who famously told that to Matt Hughes in the cage. And this is, what is the career low for the fighter? And for this one, super easy award, right? I think the answer is just the Holly home fight, but I am willing to hear other arguments, other choices, because to me, it's the Holly home fight at UFC 193. I've got an alternate selection. Ooh. Yes. Can I be the...

Can I be the turn? Can I be the turd in the punchful? Well, I just want to say the turn in the punchful. But can I be the socially aware young man first? I did this for the Donald Serroney podcast as well. This is totally valid. Okay. This is another thing to bring up.

Yes. For sure. I will just bring up. She is, she is, she is, she is, she is not a, a recognized ally of the trans community. And this is, this is tracing back to comments relating to people, people can look this up. I'm not going to rehash the whole thing. Back when, you know, the Fallon Fox controversy was coming up and there was, yeah, a trans athlete competing against women, things like that. And she made some insensitive comments.

I, again, I don't want to speak for the transphobic community. I certainly can't. So I would just help you look up. Ronda Rousey, Fallon Fox, you can make your own judgments. She had some comments with the situation, which again, I think could have been more tactful. And I, excuse me, from what I know of certain people in trans community, they certainly are not fans of the way she addressed that situation. So that's where I'll leave it again. I don't speak for them.

I am sympathetic, but smarter people than me have commented on the situation. And, you know, people are free to do that, take that as they will. and again, and how much that reflects, you know, you tie that to her career, how much you can separate that from her fighting career. Again, that's up to you. Like I mentioned with the Soroni thing, you know, us being in the business, we do, and it's not only Don Soroni, who knows, countless other MMA fighters, we do have to have an ability to separate person from career, from achievements. And I think we can do that here, but I just want to get that out of the way and address it. Also, a retweeting of conspiracy theories that people found very offensive. Again, I would just help people look these things up and make your own judgments.

And on a much, much lighter note, losing to Michelle Rodriguez and the Fast and Furious 7, listen. Oh, that's the best answer. Listen, it is. I have to tap back out because he took mine. I'm done. Are you serious? Damn it. Yeah.

Okay. Well, you can talk about, you can elaborate on more. I just want to say, it was, going wrong, it was established that Letty for anyone who, I don't know why I have to explain this, but for anyone who's not a Fast and Furious fan, Ledy is Michelle Rodriguez. If you're not a Fast and the Furious fan, turn this pot off right now. Turn this off and go watch all the Fast Furious movies. We don't want you here. No, well, don't say that. No, go watch all the Fast Furious movies and then come back.

But she, it was. No, you can stop after seven. I'm comfortable saying you can stop at seven. No, no, come on. Stop it. It was, it was. They're still going strong. I like Hobs and Shaw.

It was established. It was established that Ledi is a very good fighter. She had beaten Gina Carrano in Fast Furious 6. But I still. Does that make you a good fighter? Well, there you go. And Ronda Rousey in Festerer 7. I don't think she has any lines.

She's kind of this, or she might have like. Oh, she has lines. Does she have lines? Okay. Rick, you can remember. She has lines. But I do, her character is presented pretty regally like bad, this badass bodyguard in like Abu Dhabi.

And she loses to Michelle Redriga. I don't know. Rick, please. I'll operate more. I actually haven't watched. I'm going to read my, I'm going to read my notes on this verbata. Okay. You mentioned Holly Holme right before I was about to go.

I was going to pivot and say equally listless. stiff, overmatched. Wow. Ronda Rousie just obliterated by Michelle Rodriguez in Fast and Furious 7. I mean, just a wooden actress, bad performance. I get that, you know, she's the tough, non-talking badass, but even those few lines were really rough to handle. And then, you know, Michelle Rodriguez, there's no shame in losing to Michelle Rodriguez

because she's the movie badass of probably the decade and the last couple of decades. she's the goat, but, and Letty, the character, I mean, we don't even have to go down that road, but just completely obliterated by Lettie. So, yeah, that was my, not impressed by your performance. Oh, man, that's a great answer. That's, we're going to give it to, you know what, Holly Holmes played out. We all know about it. We don't care. It's much more interesting to give it to her loss to Lettie, you know, because it's just way more fun.

Me and A.K. On the same page there. I love it. Of course. That is A plus work, gentlemen. Really proud of you guys. Our next category, the Ivan Minjavar Award, named after my favorite weird thing that happened in M.A.,

which is Ivan Minjavar, was the first career fight for George St. Pierre. Ivan Minjavar, mostly abandoned wave for his career, GSP, greatest fighter of all time, multi-weight, middle-weight champion. This is for who is the weirdest, most surprising opponent that Ronda Rossi faced in her career. and I've got to be honest, guys, this was the most difficult time I've ever had with this category. They're not, her career was very short. I tried to dive deep.

I went into the judo record. I tried to see what I could find it. Pull out of there, see if any of the people at the Olympics she faced, you know, had done something notable outside of the judo world. And I got nothing. I came up with one answer,

but I would love for you guys to have dug deeper, maybe found something I missed. Does anyone have a good choice here? Yeah, I've got a pretty decent one. I got two. One I'll go through quickly. The Connor, the Rhonda versus Floyd talk was very weird. Oh, thank you so much.

I didn't get a chance. I didn't get a chance to give my answer for the not impressed by your performance award. Is that yours? You go on it. You go on it. No, I mean, no. Because that's not my answer. That wasn't my answer for that, but that was going to be mentioned for

sure for sure. It was just weird. I'm going to mention that later. I want to say with the interest of hindsight, she never said she was going to beat Floyd in boxing. Like a lot of these kind of conversations tend to go around. It's like, I'm going to step in the ring and beat up Floyd Mayweather. And it's like, all right, I'm going to sleep now. Be quiet. But she said if he steps in the cage, I'd tap him out. He'd beat me up in boxing. But if he steps in the cage, I'd tap him out, which to this day, I agree with. In that moment, if Floyd Mather stepped into a cage where Ronda Rousie, it probably wouldn't end well for him. I'd probably favor Ronda. Either way. The toss arm bar. Yeah. The talk around it was very weird. That's not my answer, but it pivots to another one. That is my answer. And I think this is as clear cut as it gets.

Ronda Rousey appearing on the cover of Ring Magazine is the weirdest thing that will ever happen in combat sports. Period. I totally forgot that happened. There will never be anything weirder than somebody who doesn't have good boxing, never going to have a boxing match appearing on the cover of Ring Magazine with like the caption, I think something to the effect of like, is Rhonda Rousey going to take over boxing? That was the weirdest thing that's ever happened. And I don't think anything weirder in combat sports will ever happen than that.

But it speaks to the star power she had that like she could get on the cover of ring without ever having done anything worthy of that. It's pretty crazy that she had that, that draw. Was that after the Sarah McMahon fight or the best fight? It was after the betch fight. It was right before Holly Holie Holme. Had you been the betch fight because that was the K.O. that everyone was like... It was a week or two weeks before she got knocked unconscious by Holly Holmes.

So that magazine was sitting on stands. I'm in a dentist office. That magazine is looking at me the day after she got her head kicked off by Holly Home. So I'm looking at this. People's heads off in boxing. Sure. I get it. But like she's this invincible like supernova.

And then it's like, is she going to take over the next sport now? And then it was, you know, that week she had gotten dismantled by Holly. So for me, that was like at the time super weird, now even like a weirder that that's even real. Like that's a relic. But that's my answer. Yeah. Jay, you're right. I totally forgot that.

But Jed, you're right, though. We still don't know who would win in a boxing match. I'm just saying, we don't know. We do not. We don't know. They have never boxed each other. They've never bought. We don't know.

It could be anything. Could be a boat. Who knows? Did either of you have any, any better answers than that? because my answer is not that good. No, that's as good as an answer as you can get. Like you, Jed, this is a hard one. And this might be one of the weirder answers.

But it's Amanda Nunes. She had no right being in that fight. Like that fight made, like after the Holly Home loss, if you had told me that, like, if you watch like the next six, seven months, if you watch UFC 200, if you had. if you had told me that, hey, guess who Amanda Nunes' his first title defense is going to be against? It's going to be against Ronda Rousey.

I would have laughed in your face. I would have laughed in your face. Like, there's no frigging way Ron is going to take that fight. Like, if Ronda comes back, she's going to get, you know, she's going to get a name like somebody probably in the top five, but a very winnable fight for her. And the most not winnable fight for her was Amanda Nunes. So, like, to me, just looking at, like, looking at sort of her resume

in some of the fight she's taken and some of the other names, the one that is the most stunning to me is the Amanda Nunes one because she had no business being in that fight for multiple reasons, not just from skill for skill, not just because of where her head was at, but just the fact that she clearly didn't want to fight anymore. Like she was done fighting after the Holly Home fight. And then she goes in and takes on the goat of women's MMA,

someone that was well on her way to being there. We knew how good Amanda was. And outside of AK, no one gave Roderazzi a chance to win that fight. So, yeah, to me, like, just looking at top to bottom, like early career to the end of it, it's Amanda Nudez to me. Like, that's the most stunning piece of business, not just for Rhonda, but for the UFC. Like, what was the UFC thinking? Like, oh, outside of just like, let's just get a cheap million pay-per-view buys, that's,

I mean, that's literally it because they couldn't have been like, oh, this is a compelling fight. could be really competitive. No one thought that, except for AK, but that's okay. That's okay. AK's the Prince of Positivity. I completely agree with that. I just want to defend AK for a second here. One, I think I also probably thought Rhonda had a chance in that fight. I honestly don't, I honestly don't recall if I thought she'd win or not. But the betting line, the open and closing line, Rhonda Rousey opened at minus 280 and closed at minus 190. So you got to account for obviously public star power. Yeah, star power factors into that. I wish I bet on MMA back then because I would have But there were people out there that were willing to forget the Holly Home loss for sure.

And then the subsequent kind of mental breakdown and all the associations. It takes a lot of energy to be a rock star. And the Holly Home fight, she had put her after that, she put her rock star ways behind her. And she was coming and ready to face him in newness. Do I have to read some of the thing I sent you? Do the people need to know? Yes, they do. It's very short.

It's very short. To really, really put yourself out there like that. Go for it. As mentioned earlier on the show, I did pick Ronda Rousey when writing a prediction for a site I used to work for. So this is on TheScore.com. It's very quick. Let me give you a dramatic reading here. Not a great website.

Shout up Nick Baldwin. Just so we're clear. Ronda Rousey is about to remind everyone why she became so famous in the first place. Before the media shut down, before Saturday Night Live, before Holly Home, before the movies, before Ellen, Rousey was the best female fighter in the world. Her Olympic-level judo skills combined with her steely determination and top-shelf athleticism, put her in a different class than the other women at 135 pounds. When she fell to home last November, she fell hard, but this is Rousey's chance to show that she can grow from her losses in the same vein as MMA's greatest champions. She could have picked a much easier test

in champion Amanda Noon's, a woman just as likely to choke you unconscious as she is to pound you into a fine dust. But Rousey wouldn't have it any other way. And it's that temerity that'll make her the first two-time women's band-to-weight champion. Man, that's a tough scene.

Can we just talk about... That did not age well. Yeah, the take the nature... But can we talk about the eloquence, the elegance of A.K. Lee there? I mean, what a piece of prose there. He's way too good for that not a great way. website. That's why he's at the best website in the world, MNayfighting.com.

I will say just to throw this out there. My choice was going to be Taylor Stratford, now, Taylor Godardo, mainly just because Taylor Godardo is a super weird person. Story. Her own story, yeah. She fought Rouse. Yeah, she fought Rousey in the Emmys in 2011, stopped, didn't fight again until 2020 when she was in Victa. And then now is in the PFL. She lost to Kayla. Harrison in 2021, like just a very weird career arc, but that was the best I could come up with. But I like Rick's answer the best. I throw out Julia Bud.

It just looks weird now like Julia Bud because Julie Bud. That is definitely weird. Lost her and then went on a run that ended with her because she went in a seven-year run that culminated in her becoming the Invicta, excuse me, Bellator featherweight champion. And it's just, there's this weird like 39 second loss to run to Ronda Rousey in her past. So that that one was funny. Plus I think people forget the whole like early strike force. stuff that Rousey was not a bantam weight like she was in and she fought some like 150s or like

145 I don't remember exactly where they were but it was like she could have the whole chris cyborg stuff which we're going to get to all of that came from a place but then rousey immediately was like I'm a bandam weight you got to come down and meet me so it is weird to see bud who's a feather a career featherweight to a lot of Canadians a lot of Canadians that ronda rouser was beating up Charmaine Tweed, Julia, Julia, Bud, Kaufman, and Alexis Davis. My goodness.

Just attacking your people, AK. I don't like it. And yet you still picked her to beat a man of newness. Good for you. Just taking personal out of it. Next category. The Fador Sweater of Absolute Victory Award. This is if you could have one piece of memorabilia

from the fighter's career, what would it be? Super easy choice for me, and it's not that fun, so I'll just say it. It's her first. fight kit from the Karmouche fight. I think that is just the most important, it's one of the most important piece of memorabilia, again, for all the reasons we've said. And I just remember

distinctly being like, dude, that's dope. Like, this is the first time we'd ever seen a female fight kit in the UFC. She had the Reebok sponsorship. It was like, that's sick. And that is a piece of of sporting history that I would not mind, you know, putting up on a wall and having, certainly if there was a physical Hall of Fame to go to, that's something that's in there, you know. So that's my choice. Did anybody have anything different, anything that they feel better or more pulled towards? I mean, it's kind of like where you were coming from, but probably the hoodie she was wearing when she was walking out was what I landed on. Just that she had that classic look.

She just had the sweatshirt on, the hood over her head, had that look in her eye. And I went with that just to be a little bit different. but to me it had to be something from from that night. Man, wow, we're all just in agreement. Yeah, that's easy. I don't have it. I don't have anything good. I'm not much of a collector just in general.

So for me, it would be either the Furious Seven script or the latex body suits that I mentioned now that he printed that seat. I'll take the body suit. That was my answer. Well, I'll tell you, okay, I'll tell you this. So that was my answer because I know Sarah Kaufman does not have hers. I swear this the last time I'll bring up this commercial, but this commercial was so awesome. Yeah, because I, I have spoken to Sarah Kaufman.

both in a in a professional setting in an interview and also when we were hanging out with Casey and Esther and Mark Romandia out in Western Canada. She does not have hers. Yeah, I had asked her, I said, what that'll happen to that thing? And she was like, oh, yeah, it's just gone somewhere, which is probably a good thing. But we don't know what happened to Ronda's. Rhonda, I think, had a black, a black latex cat suit. So I know I'm coming off as the biggest pervert of all time on this podcast.

But I assure you, I mean, I would want this just for, you know, for memorabilia. And, you know, it's a weird item to have. This is your best category. Thank you. The first question I ever asked, not as a journalist, I was a fan, but the first question I ever asked a fighter was at a public Q&A. And I think this was in Edmonton, I want to say, Edmonton or Winnipeg, excuse me. It was either, I don't remember if it was T.J. Grant or Sarah Coppin, who went first.

But I know the first question I ever asked to, I think Sarah Coppin was first was what was up with that commercial? And that's when she said, oh, yeah, there were a couple of suits we got from a, from a sex shop, a nearby sex shop. And I'm like, well, this is the sport I want to cover for the rest of my life. So it means a lot to me. You were made for this pod, aka, you were made for this exact pod. So we're glad to that. That's a great choice. The fans may not be able to watch this, but if we popped open that closet right behind you, what's in there? Is there a latex body suit in there? Is there something in there? Is there a bloody jockstrap or whatever it was the first time? Like the Conduct pod? There are.

There's just a big gimp suit in there. There's just a big gimp suit in there. Man, this is, this is your best category every time of the show. I'm going to just make you call in with this category's answer for every future episode. The next award, the International Player Hedges Ball Award, obviously named after the Chappelle's show skit, where we are going to, we're going to nitpick. we're going to say, hey, where, where did this fighter fall short? What were their shortcomings? And for me, this was extremely simple.

It's hard to kind of, it's hard for me to vocalize, I guess, but like, man, she, she really surrounded herself with yes men, huh? Like, there was no, no different of opinion. She was going to do her thing and it worked out until it didn't. And then her career was done. Because, you know, I mean, you could also just say that she had horrific boxing, but thought she was a great boxer. If that's, if that's the way you want to take it. But I'm going even broader to Verdean yet the yes men just being unwilling or unable to recognize her own faults and approach them and kind of overcome them.

That's to me the biggest flaw of her career. Yeah. I don't know that a lot. That's strong. I mean, that's probably the correct answer. I went a little more specific. It was the Let me

Let me just It was the Bechkehea fight That fight ending The way that it ended Was like the worst possible thing That could have happened to her Because if she just went out there And took her down and arm barred her

We might be having a totally different conversation right now Because that was It was that fight That quote unquote Ronda fell in love with her striking She became the striker I'm not just a I'm not just a judoka

I'm not just a I'm not just the one with the arm bar finisher. Oh, no, no, no, no. I can box my ass off. I'm one of the best strikers in the sport. And her coach is saying the same thing. Oh, no, she could strike. Wait, wait till you see how good her striking has gotten. And then from there, it was just like, I'm going to go box and kickbox Holly Holme. That's a great idea. So like, to me, it was just that it was that fight, that finish. Betchah had a great job trying to sell that fight with her funny faces and her anger. And Rhonda just kind of took it all in. the four horse women.

Betch was a savant at promoting. Maybe not a fighting, but man, she knew exactly how to do this thing. Yes, she sure did. So, yeah, it was that fight in just the way that it ended her. I know she sort of she she killed Lexus Davis too, but it was that fight in particular where like everything changed and her whole game plan changed and the way she viewed herself as a fighter and the way the coaches sort of answered for her fighting all changed from August 1st,

2015 and on and by the way I will never tell you to go back and watch UFC 190 because that event was one of the all time worst events ever it took forever I felt like I was like the way we watch fights now we're like oh man like this one felt like I watched it for three days that fight and that fight card I felt like I watched it for a week and a half that's how long that card was and then we finally got to Rousey versus Betchkehaheah and it ended in 34 seconds I was like thank God this card is over because it was

it was a tough watch it was a tough watch I think I think Mike is super right I think you guys all made great points especially yeah the the who you surround yourself with I mean that's that's a huge deal but I think Mike is super right that man because again I was just rewatching the home fight of course for the show and like she

and there's moments of course in there where she does grapple she does you know almost got a takedown and um this Holly Holmes got Gary take down defense you know maybe that wasn't going to work even if she had gone out like strictly focused on like kind of wrestling and judo and um because you know holly home again just on that day was really the best one of maybe the best version of her we ever ended up seeing um but yeah you can see rousey then when she comes out she is coming out to strike she is she is coming up i'm setting up in striking range

i'm going to exchange with this lady with this world champion boxer uh and yeah that has to be a product of her team and also yes her feeling herself like man my hands my hands are lightning if i land one bomb so feeling herself you it's crazy it's crazy to watch she really's like I'm mixing the martial arts. You know what I mean? If only I had been around back then on the scene, I could have told her, hashtag, hashtag, hashtag Rhonda, keep the martial arts apart. Keep the martial arts apart.

You've got great grappling. Hashtag keep the martial arts apart. But she's like, no, I'm so, I become so great at mixing them. I have to mix them up some more. Or she didn't mix it enough, maybe. And only focus on the striking. It is very bizarre to watch now. And Mike is right.

You can draw direct line from that 34-second knockout of Kohaya to the the beginning of that home fight and then to the end of that home fight. Yeah. I mean, you really can. It's the case. I posted in our Slack in case you guys didn't remember it. I wanted to make sure you remembered. Of course.

The Ronda Shadowboxing Giff, which is to this day still one of the funniest things. I don't know when that was what that was in relation to. I think it was like a countdown or something. Yeah, I think it was the pre-home fight countdown. It's mesmerizing. It is just the absolute best thing. And then she goes out there and head movement. It's so uncomfortable to watch.

Has she never? Go ahead. I was just going to say, somebody at Ring Magazine saw that and said, yep, this is it. Cover. We're on to take it over. Cover.

Is this? I don't know. She's got hands. I don't know anything about it. Is this not a, you don't do a little Lucy. Is there no Lucy Goosey like, you know, you're just warming up kind of.

That's not what this is. like you don't do it like that oh no it's it looks so bad in isolation i mean you know i'm sure if you extend the clip that's fair that's fair that's fair you slow-mo something you really like but i mean it was a lot of this okay it was i can't i can't stop looking at it yeah between that and connor before his remember when connor did the media workout yeah the arm shake thing before the media workout before the floyd may weather fight those are the two like gifts that will never age well. Connor versus the balance beam is that's actually my pick for the funnest thing that's ever

happened in the sport. That's a great one. Oh, wait until you hear what I got later. I got something better. Oh, I love that because I got something better. Just to put a bow,

my player hater's ball award pretty similar. Like I just, I kept it pretty simple distilled striking. I mean, I think that's obvious. Humility. I think Jed, that's kind of like where you're at.

Yeah, very much where I'm coming from. But I think there's one little offshoot of that. humility that I think is important, like ability to handle defeat. Like she very much struck me as a, and throughout her career as a take my ball and go home. Like the moment I face something, I was going to be out. And I think she spoke into this actually off the top of my head. I think she spoke to her mother like never preparing her for defeat because she's supposed to be like a dominator. Like she would like wake her up an arm bar and like you're the best in the world and she never really prepared for defeat. But her ability to handle defeat was just not there. And I think her career.

could have looked a lot different if the first time she faced diversity, she handled it the way Connor McGregor handled it versus, or, you know, the times that Connor McGregor had handled diversity in his career, come back from it with motivation as opposed to kind of just defeat. So yeah, but the petulence, all these things kind of added up to a bad stew. I want to talk about that because that has always been one of the more interesting aspects to Rousey's career to me is that she obviously can't handle defeat well. Yeah. But it's not like she didn't get defeated.

Like she was not a dominant force in judo. I mean, she was a great judoka. Bronze medalist took silver at a world championships, won a bunch of Pan Ams. Like she was a very good judoka, but she lost. She lost in big moments on big stages. But she didn't ever, her reaction in MMA was just so different to, like you said, take her ball and go home. Because that's really what she did after the home fight. And there are other factors at play, I'm sure.

but she got beat, she was gone. She didn't talk to anybody for a year. Nobody heard from her until she was going to come back for the nudist fight. And then that was, and then she just, she just left. And that has always been so fascinating to me because she had lost before. She had come back before. She, she knew from professional athletic experience at the highest levels that, like, okay, I can come back from defeat and I can, you know, still succeed.

Because, I mean, hell, in the Olympics, the way the Olympics, Judo works is you lose and then you get back in the reposage. Like you get an opportunity to essentially wrestle back into metal contention, which is what she did. That's how she won bronze. But she couldn't handle it in a man. That has always been so weird. Like, has that ever struck you guys? Because I think about it whenever I think of Ronda.

I don't know because I got the sense. And maybe this is me not understanding judo enough at the time that I was thinking about it. My understanding was that she abandoned her judo career early as well. well, unless I'm mistaken there. Well, she did in general. I mean, she was still young. She could have kept going. And I think that speaks to the same instinct that she had an MMA where she felt like she

was capped out. She faced that wall that she couldn't get over and was just like, okay, I've done it. I'm done. I'm going to go do something new. And that's what I think of. And again, I'm out of my depths a little bit here. I spoke about the judo. I'm out of my depths a little bit with the wrestling.

But it also felt like after a certain point, she kind of got, she hit that point there. And then she went away and came back. It seems like she just has that instinct where it's like if this is not going perfectly for me, I'm packing it up. And I'm going gets tough. I get going somewhere else. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know.

It has always struck me as, because I'm used to the MMA fighter having that happen or the athlete in general, having that happen and then going wait till I come back. You've never seen me like this before. going to be the best, I'm going to be the best thing you've ever seen. And her attitude was, was kind of the opposite. So yeah, it always has struck me as weird. But I mean, it was kind of like, like, it fits her story, honestly. Like, I feel like this story makes a lot of sense. Like, this Ronda story isn't like, there's no mystery to it. It all, it all kind of like played out the way it was supposed to play out is how I view Ronda Rouse's. That's really good point. I've never thought there is no mystery to Ronda Rousey. It's all on the page. There. It's all there.

real way. Yeah. All right. We're getting bogged down. We have a ton of categories to get to, so we're going to move on to the closely related alternate universe award for what is the biggest what if of Rhonda Rousey's career. I have three possible choices. I have one of them that I'm going to choose, but my first two choices are, what if she

wasn't surrounded? What if Edmund Tivertian wasn't her coach, essentially? And similarly, what if she could take criticism? and improve because I think both of those are there. Before I get to my big one, the one that I think is the correct answer, do you guys have, what do you all have? Mike, where are you coming from on this? Yeah, I was with you at least, I was torn.

I had two that I was equally in like with. One was not even just if she left Edmund, but what if she just tried different things? What if she went to ATT? What if she went to extreme couture or went to, you know, some of these other gyms? real camp. Yeah, Jackson Wink.

Like, she could still work with Edmund, but just do other things, too. Like, what would have happened if, like, cross-training was as popular back then as it is now? And the other thing just kind of going off of that was the biggest what if for me is what if Rhonda Rousey came along six years later? Like, what if Ronda Rousey came in onto the scene in, like, 2019, 2020? Like, what would it have looked like? Would she have been on the contender series? would she have fought for like Titan FC?

Would she have gotten this big push? Or would she have been slowly built up to the fighter that, and maybe she would have improved along the way? Like she didn't just get thrust into the spotlight. She just slowly got the build that some of these fighters get now. Like would she have been a 10 and 10 fighter? Would she have been the ultimate fighter? Would she have been, would the build have been the same?

But without, but at the same token, like without her, women's MMA wouldn't be where it is. now. So, so it's, it's, it's one of those, like, weird, yeah, it's one of those, like, weird kind of journeys I take in my mind. Like, you know, what if Rhonda wasn't tapped as the person to change women's MMA? What if, like, Misha Tate was that person? And Misha became the big star. Misha fought Liz Karmouche. And then all of a sudden, we have Ronda Rousey coming along, who just comes out of nowhere, would her career as a fighter have been longer if she didn't just get thrust into the pressure and the spotlight right off the bat. But I know, I know.

that's a hard one to answer, but it's one that I thought about a lot. Well, that's the thing. We can't answer these. But that is my big one though, Mike, is, well, just what if Rhonda never came along? Very simply, like, do we have women in the UFC today? Because I have no idea. Because I don't think Misha would have been the one that would have gotten Dana to stand up and say, let's do this.

Like, Misha was big, but she wasn't Rhonda big. So that, that's to me going to always be the biggest is what if she never came? but I like where you're coming at because I think there are other interesting kind of thought experiments to go down if she came differently or how it came. Yeah, I went a lot less. These are really good. I went a lot less like philosophical. I went a little more like practical.

Let's let's make a small tweak and see what happens. Mine was what if she was able to get past Holly Holme? Like what if she won that fight? What if it was just like not, hey, I'm going in there striking. Like what happens? Because from there, that's a million. pay-per-view buys, Amanda Nunes is a million pay-per-view buys, how big could she have gotten?

Could she have really, like, pushed that on the level? I don't, does, she probably doesn't fight Nunes next because Tate beat home. So like, maybe she does Tate a third time, like, just to the moon superstar. There's a world where that kind of just

that train keeps rolling. And then Mike touched on this earlier, and I think it's one of the most interesting points is like, what if her comeback wasn't world beater Amanda Nunes? Now, I'll say in high, like, there's a little bit of hindsight out of to that, right? Like, Amanda wasn't what she is now at that time. But she was still damn good.

And this was the start of that. Like, this is the, as that run is cresting and we're going upward. But like, what if Ronda Rousey came back against somebody that she could beat? Like, that'd be pretty good. That'd be pretty nice to see that. Well, that's the thing. What if instead of, because she came back on her timeline, what if she had just accelerated her timeline once Tate won the belt and said, Tate has the belt over home?

Yeah. I'm coming back. She gets the title fight over Nunes. No question. Yeah. Like whenever she comes back, she gets the fight. If she'd come back then, I mean, she'd already beaten Tate twice. Yep.

Like, that's, it's a whole different world. That's a nice one. A lot of good one ifs. Yeah. If somebody who was mentally defeated to come back to somebody you beat twice, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me. Amanda Nunes one's a rough one. But yeah, those are two, a little more like quick, quick fix. But yeah, who knows?

They opened some really sliding door moments, though. I hadn't even thought of that. Mine also involves home, but I want to talk about Rick's pick first. Yeah, if she beats home, I mean, you're probably, probably the cyborg talk, I mean, it was always around, but it probably ramps all the way up. Now, Rick, were you with, were you working with Invicta around the, this would have been around 2015, 2016, when Cyborg was in, was in Victa? I was, yeah.

I was there when she was just going to the, like, like, with Invicta, last couple of fights, then go into the UFC. I mean, do you think it's possible? The UFC would have tried to do some sort of co-promotion thing and really make that cyborg fight happen because I'm trying to think who at Bantamweight would have been next. I know you guys said maybe Tate again. Cyborg would have been the fight.

Like that would have been all the energy would have been for that. I think we were there. I think if she had done it that we were there. I think it was finally time for that fight. Yeah, I think it was on the door. Like at that point, Cyborg was trying to cut down and show that she could meet in the middle and fight Ronda Rousey. This is when Cyborg was putting her body through hell and the early part of her UFC career.

So, yeah, I think if that momentum continued for Rhonda, it was an unavoidable collision course between Cyborg and Rousy. Yeah, that was kind of like another thing that I thought of with all of this was what if Gina Corrano be Chris Seibor like? Oh, yeah. Like, like, could she, she would, maybe the UFC goes to the well sooner because there was a lot of attention on that fight. And there was a lot of eyeballs on Gina Carano. I mean, she would have gone off. I think she would have won that fight. Yeah.

I think she would have been the one who brought it. Yeah. Yeah. We're having a very different conversation. Man, there are a lot. I didn't realize. There are so many fun what ifs for Rousey that could have happened where just a lot of doors that could have opened that were shut because she got kicked in the face by Holly Holsey. that's a shame well we already touched on it because but so we might as well just make it official

the habib Tony awards our next award it is yeah fight that never happened but you always wanted to see i think there's one very obvious answer and you could maybe make a case also for a rousey gina chrono fight which rouse even recently said is the only fight she might possibly consider returning for which honestly if she did i that's going to sell a million pay per view buys probably that's just how the sport works if that fight the UFC could make that happen but it's Chris Cyborg right we're all in agreement this is the fight

that there's no other answer this is it yeah I love it when we have an easy category especially because we still got plenty more now hold on now who would you guys pick to win see this is hard this is hard because because we're thinking

of Rhonda now right we're thinking of defeated Rhonda like you can't shake that from your head you cannot shake the It was a genuine question at the time. Yes. Especially because the Cyborg thing was so, because the Carano fight was always the cyborg, you know, chink in the armor there was, hey, Gina, Cyborg pulled Gina Carano into mount on her.

And if Rhonda Rousey is in a tie up, she's going to toss her and take Mount. And then it's Arm Bar City, baby. It was a conversation. I distinctly remember it. It was. And I think hindsight is just too strong here that, like, I cannot, it, I cannot separate great cyborx career now and ronda's end from each other to the point where it wouldn't be competitive in my mind but at the time i would have been much more willing to get on the idea that ronda

can can get inside clinch and and figure out something from there but now you look at it and it's like yeah she do what holly home did you circle punch her in the face twice and it'd be a wrap so it's it's impossible for me to shake that but i think at the time i would have thought it'd be at least semi-competitive. Definitely. It's a good thing. I didn't have a podcast or any sort of outlet like that back then because I would have been telling, I mean, I was to anyone who would listen to me back then.

I was telling a lot of people I thought Rander Razzie would beat Cyborg. But I was for the, I was for the longest time. And I'm sure we'll do a damn they were going on Cyborg one day if she ever retires. I mean, she keeps knocking heads around. She may never retire. She may never retire. She's so good.

But at the time, and to this day, I'll always sort of scrutinize Chris Cyborg's record. I mean, yeah, listen, you can only. beat who you, who they put in front of you and she beat everybody they put in front of her. But I think I was, I was really high on the Rounder Rising train for sure. And I was like, I really think like she could submit it for the reasons you guys mentioned. If they get into that situation where there's a tight grapple, man, I think, I think rising a submitter.

But, you know, Cyborg also has great jujitsu. There's a very good chance you could survive those situations. But I was very on. If you would ask me around that era, 2014, 2016, well, maybe before that I should make out of 2016, but 2014 and before the Holly Home fight, 2015, I would have said, I would have picked Rousey for sure. She would have opened as a favorite, no doubt. If we're not looking at the Holly Home fight,

she would have opened as a favorite. Now, not as big as the home line, but she would have opened as a huge favorite over Cyborg. I mean, especially if we're saying she beat home, she's definitely opening it as a favorite there. Yes, that changes everything. I had not thought of that. Can you imagine if she had beaten Holly Home

and then goes and somehow beats Chris Cyborg, like, I, she's just an unbelievable megastar if that happens. What could have been? The effects of that are so crazy because then you think about the fact does, are they putting their energy into building Connor McGregor? Are they just like, hey, we're going to ride around Ronda Rousey for the next 10 payper views? Like, are they building this next guy who's going to be the payper view star,

who's going to be their thing? Maybe there's not as much attention. Maybe Ronda's the one doing all the media ops. There's a crazy world of Ronda Rousey B, Talleyholm where like the whole MMA world is different. But maybe she just retires, though, if she beats Cyborg, right? She would already one foot out the door, right?

She beat Cyborg, honestly, where the hell would you go from that? Where would you go? Misha Tate 4, baby. Let's do it. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.ca. All right, y'all, just a few more categories, and we've got a new one. This is the Brad Ims. Whoa, are you serious award? This category is named after Brad Ims, the 6-8-280 heavyweight,

who's once on tough, and also once won back-to-back fights by Gogo Plata. As far as I know, the only person that I've made to do that, and it remains the funniest thing in the world to me. So this category is for the most impressive or unbelievable career statistic.

I got a little excited. I have a bunch of them. So let's lead off with you. Sounds like talking about it before. Ricky, you feel the least confident in this category. So what did you dig up for us? Yeah, mine's not really that impressive. It's extremely obvious.

It's she finished six UFC title fights in a row. Like, there have been, plenty of people who win six UFC title fights in a row, but that record, I believe, still stands. And the combined time on that was 17 minutes and 57 seconds. The Tate rematch was 10 minutes and 58 seconds of it. So, like, basically she was doing work really quick. But six title fight finishes in a row is a record that I think might last the test of time. Like, that is extremely tough to do.

So Rhonda, Ronda's run right there was pretty magical. Yeah, yeah, just to add to that, the last four from McMahon Davis, Zagon, to Cahia, a little over two minutes, a little over two minutes after the Tate fight. That was it. Her next four tal defenses a little over two minutes. That's it. That's insane. I mean, super insane.

And one of my facts, in fact, is that Ronda Rousey, I don't know if you guys ever look this up. She owns the three fastest finishes in UFC women's championship history and also number five. So four of the top five, any ideas, just quick shot off the top of your head, who the one person who also is in that top five is. It's Amanda Noon's. It is her win over Chris Cyborg, which was 51 seconds or whatever. Because I, when I was going back to look through,

I was like, does she just have all of the fastest finishes in women's MMA history, MMA championship history? And it's like, actually no, Cyborg does sneak one in there. But four of five is a pretty dominant is a word

that you could use to describe that, I would say. Yeah. Mike, what about you as far as interesting stats and factoid? I just think it's absolutely nuts that of this woman's 12 victories, nine of them were under a minute. Nine of them were under one minutes. Ten of them were a minute and six or less.

That's frigging ridiculous. Like that is freaking ridiculous. Nine out of 12 wins under one minute, 10 under 60, like 66 seconds or less. It's insane. It's just absolutely insane. and like just her total time fighting is just ridiculous. Like I haven't even done the math for that yet. Oh, I have.

And I realized I did it wrong. But I want to hear it since you have it all in there. Which I have one fight that entered the third round. I have it because I, so I did her whole career, but then I realize that that's way less interesting than this. The way to frame it is this, which is my favorite of the factoids. Her total UFC career fight time is 20. 24 minutes and 44 seconds. Frankie Edgar has surpassed that in 11 fights inside the UFC.

In 11 fights. Not 11 fights combined. In 11 individual fights, he fought more than Rhonda did in her entire career inside the UFC, which is my favorite way to play with math here is absolutely insane. Not even one full five-round championship fight. She didn't even make it to the 25 minute mark. championship runs. She never made it into the championship rounds.

She barely made it into the third round. She tapped tape under a minute. She doesn't even equal one total, one total championship fight. That's crazy. Yeah, she's absolutely, it's my favorite way to play with numbers here. I have one other, which is Rhonda owns a ton of records. So, I mean, you could, especially UFC records. She's the first Olympic medalist to win a UFC championship.

Obviously, Henry Suhudo would go on to equal that. Better it, if you want to. to argue that his gold is better than her bronze. She's fastest, you know, talked about fastest fights. She has the most arm bar finishes in WEC, UFC, UFC Pride Strike Force history, but at nine, but fun fact, she does not have the most arm bar finishes in women's MMA because, my dear friends, that I believe,

I'm not a thousand percent sure on this, but I believe that belongs to Yucasugi, who does at least have 11 arm bar finishes to her career, obviously very big in Japanese MMA, pioneer of the sport. If you guys don't know, better ask somebody about Yucasugi. But that's kind of the fun with math I had. A.K., did you have any other? No, but I just think it's like the way you pray.

We just talk about always how short her career is. And then to frame it like that, it makes me realize, like, our actual time watching her in the cage was legitimately that short. It's not just the only 14 fights and only, you know, five years in the, in her career, like less than 25 minutes of actual in cage action. which is just absolutely wild. And even if you add up her pre-UFC career, all of her pre-UFC fights were first round finishes.

Only one of them went past the minute mark. I mean, adding that all together, you're adding another seven minutes total to her fight time. Like, just what an interesting career in that way. All right, I love the new category. I had so much fun picking things out for that. Next category, one of my personal favorites, we sometimes have some difficulty,

but I think this time it sounds like we all might have a very good feel. The Sean Ferris Award for the actor who should play them in a movie. This is named after Sean Ferris, the actor who played Jake Tyler and the cinematic masterpiece never backed down. I have one, I mean, you could pick Rhonda. I think, you know, Rhonda, we've talked about her acting, not the best. But for me, I want to see if AK, I think you and I might be on the same page. I think the obvious answer, the first thing I thought was Florence Pugh. Absolutely.

Okay, let's go, baby. Same. We all let the look. She can do action. She distanced a black widow. She did. She played Paige in the WROB biopic movie. She's of the right age.

I didn't know that was the thing, but okay. Yeah. So she's done physical, like some stunt work. She's had to get into sort of a different shape to play, you know, certain roles. She's of the age where she could play a younger Rhonda and also play an older Rhonda. It's just perfect. She's an Academy Award nominee, Future Academy Award winner. She rules?

Yeah. She rules. midsummer. I have to admit, I didn't know it was so obvious, but I'm glad we all kind of arrived at. Oh, yeah. It was the only, like, instantaneous. I had one back up. Actually, before I go, what about Mike?

Let's see where Mike is at. If Mike was on the pew train with us. She was my number two, but mine, just because it was more fun, we'd have to, like, de-age or throw her back in a time machine. Julia Stiles was my mic. Oh, of course. Julia Stiles. She looks exactly like Ronda.

You'd make it maybe six years ago. It's Julia Stiles. If you could do, yeah, Julia Stiles, you know, 20, 2012 Julia Stiles, I'm in. 10 things I hate about you, Julia Stiles is the correct answer. One of the best movies ever. That's a great choice. I don't, I do not hate that choice at all. But this is the first time it's been this easy for this category.

Let me throw this out there. This was my number two. What about like somebody, now she's a little older than Florence, but not much. But what about somebody like Brie Larson? I feel like she'd take it pretty seriously. She's got a little bit of badass vibes going right now because of the Marvel. Realerson, I still think could do it just from an age standpoint. I still think that could be a.

She's not much older, but she's a little bit older than Florence. But yeah, I think we're all like Florence Pugh. Let's do it. Yeah, I mean, this is the case. Somebody, Hollywood, call me. I'll start writing a script for the Ronda movie, Florence Pugh. Just book it. And Michelle Rodriguez, Michelle Rodriguez has to be in the movie as a rematch.

Amanda Nunes. That she taps. Yeah, that she taps out quickly. Find a way to make it work. But Michelle Lodry, this is Amanda Nunes is the best thing that could ever happen. That's even better, but we've got to get Rhonda one back here. Oh, God. Wow, that's the best time we've ever had with that category.

Unanimous decision, Florence. Yes, absolutely. The next award, Cole Conrad Career Change Award, named after Cole Conrad, who famously abandoned Pellator and while being the heavyweight champion to go sell milk. and that is what would Ronda Rousey do if she weren't a fighter? This is my least favorite category today just because I only have the answer of pro wrestling. It's obviously what she is doing. I'd like to find a better one, but it was hard for me to think of something she's better suited to than that.

Yeah, I mean, my answer was we know the answer of wrestling, but also like rancher slash farmer and like video game streamer. Like the way I approached this was like, what do I know about Ronda Rousey? And the answer is, I don't know jack shit about Ronda Rousey. the things that she lets us see because she's such a like closely guarded person and has never really like opened up that much and the things we see her do are the things that she does so all i know is that she likes to wrestle she likes to tend to her farm and she likes to stream video games so that's all i got is is that's what she'd be doing yeah i i'm with the streamer thing that was my first thought her love of Pokemon and probably other video games is so genuine i i can't find

i was just like trying to find the clip now on youtube i know she's just like There's a clip on our on MA Fighting, Emmy Fighting, where she talks about Pokemon. It's a great website, great YouTube, a lot of great shows. The MMA Hour, fantastic show. Fantastic.

No, that's Bard, great podcast. But if you hear her talk about it, it's when you hear, like, anyone nerd out about something, and they lose all their faculties, they lose all a sense of social decorum. They lose all,

like, they don't even try to provide context or the person they're talking to. They just get so into it. So anyone dig up, like, interviews of her time on Pokemon. on it is legitimate. And she would definitely become a, like, not just a successful streamer,

she'd be like one of the top, like, streamers for sure with, with her personality, her look, her, again, her dedication to the game, as it were. Yeah, if MMA was an option, she'd be streaming right now. Mike, Julia Stiles, number one fan. Do you have anything different? I mean, those are all great answers. And I tend to go back to this, but this is a little bit of a different one. Because for Saroni, I thought he'd be a great, like, reality show money winner,

just going on all the shows and doing well. like Rhonda Rousey would have been a great castmate for the real world because then we would have learn more about her she might have she might have just whooped some ass male or female arm barming dudes our barring dudes after a night on the town when libations are drunk at a pretty ferocious pace Rousey just beating up dudes in the alleyway like that'd be super fun and for you New York Rick what that would have led to

would have been just a rich career. I love where this is going. On the challenge. Like maybe the biggest money winner in the history of the challenge. Maybe she's co-hosting with T.J. Laban right now. But Rhonda would have been it would just have been really interesting

to see how she would have done in that kind of setting before she became like this massive star. And she probably would have become a star in that setting as well just because of who she was and the look and her attitude and her confidence, but then she just would have won millions on the challenge, which would have been fun. Absolutely nailed it.

She would have been the best villain in challenge history. The only thing that could have prevented her is if she faced some early adversity and then quit and went home. Because I could also see that happening. She lost a final of Johnny. She lost the final and was just like, I'm done. But man, that is such a tremendous answer. I mean, that that's the one.

I like it. I mean, you could also do just bouncer and, you know, in a country western bar is that? Yeah. Too soon. Yeah. And then Jake Gyllenhaal

did it for less money and Jake Gyllenhaal taken everything she worked for. Also, I doubt Jake Jillenhaal did it for less money than Rhonda would have gotten. I know. I don't think Rhonda's great negotiator based on how much Dana White enjoyed working with her. Second and last category.

The Phil Barone Award. I'm the best ever. What is the career peak? What is the apex of Ronda Rousey's career? I have a very, very obvious answer. I would love to hear if you guys think different, but it has to be the Betchkoheya fight for me. It's just that was when it was all clicking.

She'd come off these back-to-back wins. She goes to Brazil fights what is obviously an easy matchup, but then knocks her out. You know, that she's got hands. It gets her on the cover of. She was on the cover of the ring magazine. Yeah. And she saw 900,000 paper views against Bech-Koha.

Like that is, I can't. And then more after. Yeah, like just an infinite number of paper views against Betch-freaking Coheya. And she could have done anything. If she had retired at that moment to go be a professional wrestler, like, it would, everyone were like, oh, she's just the greatest ever. And that's how it would have been. To me, that's it.

That's the peak. but I'm willing to hear other arguments. I'm with you. There's no other argument. At that moment of time, after that fight, Ronda Rousey could have picked anything in the entire world that she wanted to do,

and she would have had the entry to that. They would have opened the doors for her to do it. To dominate boxing. She made the freaking cover of Ring Magazine without ever having boxed. She had one knockout. I mean, Alexis Davis was a TKO, but she took her down and bashed her face.

Like, man, like after that fight, she's as big as any star has ever been in combat sports. Have we launched the MMA fighting TikTok? Is there an MHAVICH? We have, yes. We follow it on TikTok at MMA Fight Talk. We won't do this because it's cruel. We should, we have, but we should do a TikTok of the cover of the ring magazine and under it, the gif of the shadow boxing. Why are you saying we won't do it because it's cruel?

We should absolutely, that's the best idea I've ever seen. It's so. amazing to think about. And I remember during the home fight, they mentioned, like, home is like mentioned in an issue recently. I was like,

I guess among the greatest, you know, women's box of home. Like home is mentioned in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Ronda Rossi was, now in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Ronda Rosi was on the cover.

Yeah. The cover. That's it. Didn't age well. I can't. I can't. Cold take. Cold take is what that is.

So I had, I had a silver medalist for this category because I thought love silver. It was probably the obvious. It was probably the obvious answer. a bronze medalist, you know, in the spirit of Rhonda? No, she wins them both with this one. December 2013, UFC 168, Misha Tate, part two, because we got to see the villainous side

of Ronda Rousey. We got to see the heel persona of Ronda Rousey because Mishu was trying to be all respectful and shake Ronda's hand, and Ronda was like, walked away. And Ronda kind of got like a little bit of heat for the first time in her career. And Rhonda, like Rhonda has been able to bounce back to that pretty much any time she wanted. And that was the first time people looked at Rhonda in a different kind of view, but it still worked because people cared. She evoked more emotion after that fight than maybe she ever had in her entire career. So that to me was probably a pivotal moment for her because we got to see sort of the villain's side.

And she became almost must-see pay-per-view star for that reason, because you either wanted to see her. her go out and just arm bar another woman in 25 seconds, or you wanted to see Sarah McMahon or Alexis Davis or Katzingano or even Betchahe, punch her in the face and give her those comeuppance that maybe she deserved after sort of turning her back on Misha and having that moment after the fight. So I thought that was actually like a real big star making moment for her, whether it was portrayed as like Rhonda as a baby face, but now you're adding that villainous role to her as well that you could sell in a different way. So I think that actually helped her star potential quite a bit as well.

Here's my silver medalist, because I do think there's, there's another moment that we just haven't really spent much time talking about. And this is not my purview, you know, the AK, so I'll tee you up and you can wax if you need to. But the WrestleMania 31 thing, the Rock is the biggest star in the world. Like there's nobody in the world who doesn't know the Rock. And her going, while still being a fighter, not even doing the pro wrestling thing at that point, going WrestleMania,

the rock is in the ring with her raising her hand. Like, I don't follow wrestling, and I knew that was happening because that's, it's the rock. It's the biggest movie star in the world boosting her up. And that, like, that is, that's probably the thing she's like, the remembers, I would assume,

is like the most stoked about her entire career unless you wanted to say bronze medal at the Olympics. Yeah. And she might have had the best in-ring debut in the history of professional wrestling. Like, when she had that tag, Is that the case? Hey, hey, hey, be respectful to Logan Paul.

Wait a minute. It was up. Oh, wow. With the impact and like expect, like, look, Logan Paul was phenomenal at WrestleMania. She was even great at SummerSlam. But Rhonda and Angle versus Triple H and Stephanie McMahon is about as perfect of a debut as you can get. And I was like, oh, this was actually really good because I had horrific expectations heading into it.

I thought Rhonda was just going to be junk and she was actually really good. And it was about as good as you can get for that situation. Now, Logan Paul is, and Pat McAfee are two unicorns in this type of situation. But Rhonda, I mean, that was an excellent, you could watch that match a million times and not get bored of it. Shout us to Bad Bunny as well. Shout us a bad bunny. But, yeah, listen, that match, Dave Meltzer approved four and a quarter stars. Four and a quarter stars for her first ever match.

So, I mean, obviously, big credit, Kurt Angle, AAA, Stephanie McMahon as well. but yeah that was it was fun really fun to watch not to derail us too much because we need to close this down but i genuinely do not know the answer and you know i've got got best friends here who know both of these things very well so is ronda a better wrestler than she was a fighter no no no no she's good she's good but but i have no concept for where she is as a pro wrestler yeah i mean i remember she was like she had been training it on and off like you know in her free time before like she she's a huge huge huge wrestling fan, right? So there's a genuine love there. And then you add in her athleticism and

natural gifts, her actual fighting ability. It was definitely an easier transition for her than for a lot of other, you know, it would be for a lot of others. But yeah, I think she's, she's above average. I don't know if she's great, but she's definitely above average for someone who's, you know, essentially has started her pro wrestling career proper so late. If wrestling was, if pro wrestling was just going in there in wrestling, she'd be like good. She'd be like a B. But wrestling is about selling yourself and getting on a microphone and speaking. And she's terrible at that. Like really, really awful.

Yeah, yeah. She's not great at it. She's as awful as she was when a microphone is in front of her at the UFC a lot of times. Oh, she's so bad. She's really bad. She's like she was on the ultimate fighter. Like everything she said, you were just like, oh, please stop. Like it was, it's, she's just not good.

And that's fine. Like I've said this a million times, you cannot, we cannot be all things. Ronda is a promo cutter. is just not good. She's a fine wrestler and a fine entertainer. Does she have a mouthpiece? It's like Paul Hamon. No, she just turned into a villain.

So Paul Heyman, if you're listening to this, get in Triple H's ear. Help her. Let Ron to just make mean faces and you talk for her because I think that'd be the best thing that could happen. Do the Brock Lesnar thing? I have to admit, I'm so like,

I'm not shocked because I guess I hear some of this, but like she, I have never thought of somebody as a more natural, heel in like real life than Ronda Rousey it's like Floyd Mayweather Ronda Ronda Rousey like she is the most natural heel oh yeah yourself but she can't do it as a performance she just can't do it huh? Her walking out the curtain and smiling at the fans I never got that I never got that I guess she just can't act yeah well you know there goes yeah anyway we've gone on for an infinite

amount of time we got to blow this thing down so let's do it final category it is the legacy award it is it is just putting a bow on Ronda Rousey's career. And Mike, let us start with you. Anything you got to say about Routy Ronda Rousey, get it off your chest. I'm just going to kind of go back to where I was at the beginning of this thing. There are certain terms that get thrown out that are used very loosely. Ronda Rousey is a pioneer.

Without Ronda Rousey, we are not having this show. We are not doing what we do for M.AFighting.com. She is such a pivotal piece of this puzzle. and if there is a Mount Rushmore of importance when it comes to the UFC, Ronda Rousey's face best beyond yours, because if not, you're just wrong. Like, you're just terribly wrong. And it's like New Yorkerick has made,

made such a great point about hindsight and how we view Ronda now compared to what it was like in the build. Like we think about Chris Cyborg versus Ronda Rousey now, and we would just immediately think that Chris Seiborg would just blow the doors off her because we just look at the last two fights that we saw Ronda compete in, and that's just not who she was as a fighter. That was the burnt out version of Ronda Rousey. This was the Ronda Rousey whose heart just wasn't really in it anymore.

She was just doing things perhaps for the wrong reasons. And she was dealing with a lot. And I think if you really look beyond just the narrative of Ronda Rousey at the end of her career, if you look beyond some of the things that were said, how she handled the bill to Amanda Nunes fight, if you just take all that out of it and just peel off those layers and just,

just listened to some of the things she was saying. Like go back to that Ellen DeGeneres interview she did when she talked about the depression. She talked about suicidal thoughts and talked about the pressures that were on her. And you realize that Rhonda Rousey could be both told as someone that was larger than life, but also as a human being that just never got the understanding that most athletes in her position would have gotten. And Rhonda in any other sport is viewed from that sense probably much differently. probably much differently. Like she was in the WNBA or was, you know,

just continued on as an Olympic athlete or she was a professional golfer or tennis player. Like we would be having a totally different conversation about Rhonda, the person and not Rhonda, the fighter and the one who got knocked out by Holly Holm and the one that got run over by Amanda Nunes. We'd be looking at her much differently. And to see what she has done with herself and been able to pick up the pieces from that and turn it into a whole other profession and become a star in that profession. And yeah, I dump on her a little bit for her promo cutting skills,

but it doesn't take away the fact that she went on to do big things and is continuing to do big things. So Ronda Rousey deserves better from most people, if we're being honest. And what she did resume-wise for her career as an actual MMA fighter, like Rick said earlier, you're never, ever going to see that again. You're never going to see another woman come in and put up the type of numbers that she put up. If you were along for that ride, you were a witness to something special and something we're never going to see again in women's MMA, at least not for a very long time. I will not be on this earth the next time we see something like this.

I love it. Okay. Let's go, best friend. There's not a lot to add to that. I mean, that's just a perfect way to sum it up. I, you know, we can say this almost the end of every episode, Jed, but like it sucks how much an MMA in retrospect, people want to kind of downplay. someone's achievements and question their competition, which was really absurd with Rousey, the competition part, because seven, I want to say seven of her last eight opponents are still fighting.

Liz Karmouche is a world champion in Beltaur, not a different weight class, world champion. Misha Tate came back, still fighting. Sernic Man is still fighting. Alex Davis is not with the Ossini anymore. It's not retired. She's still fighting. Katsungano was 3 in Belator. Betcha Hayer retired.

Holly Holm is still fighting. Amanda Nune is still fighting. So these are still relevant names. She lost Nunes's home. That's fine. but because she beat them so quickly, it's weird how it would be like, oh, we'll look back on like,

oh, Lex Davis is not good or Samarman's not good. I'm like, that's absurd. These are really, really good, high-level fighters. Liz Carbush, we know, was a really good fighter. So her resume was very strong at the time.

She beat the best that she could beat at the time in a division that I feel back then at least was stronger, well, and even now it was stronger than featherweight. Featherweight is not a real division. So any talk of like comparing her to Chris Cyborg, stuff like that, yeah, Chris Seaborg has definitely laughed her,

has gone past her right now, the longevity alone. But her resume, I still think, stands up. Her peak stands up with anyone. Man or woman. Man or woman. The peak of her career stands up with anybody. So, again, there's a lot of reasons like her personally.

That's fine. That's a whole other thing. Her fighting achievements, though, I feel like should be impeccable. And I feel like anyone questioning her legacy or impact just doesn't know. Or either wasn't there or, you know, for whatever reason, cannot put into a proper perspective, how important she was to the game and how good a fighter she actually was. That's the last of what I want to punctuate. Ronda Rousey was a really, really, really good fighter.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just going to take the baton because you guys both said like everything eloquently the same way I was going to say it. Underappreciated. I think she hasn't gotten a fair shake from fans. The part that I'll pivot to because I agree with everything you said is that I think part of it is on Ronda Rousey to a certain extent. extent. She cultivated a certain persona. Her petulance, for lack of a better word, I used it earlier,

but I think it applies. Her lack of humility. The personality that she was was her biggest, the wind in her sails that propelled her at a great heights because she was uncompromising, she was unashamed. She was who she was, and she was going to tell you that she was going to beat you. And then she would go in the cage and do it. It's a tried and true method, Floyd Mayweather, Connor McGregor. This is how you achieve that superstardom is being uniquely confident in your abilities and then going out and proving it. But also when the fall comes, the people are lined up to dance on your grave. That is how this goes in this combat sport. And I think that's the story of Ronda Rousey is she flew so high and got so close to the sun because of who she was. But when that fall came, this is why she's underappreciated.

This is why people are lining up to do that. It's unfortunate because as we've all kind of like talked about in this lengthy, you know, evaluation of her career. At her peak, she was the best of the best. This is one of the most dominant fighters who's ever fought, one of the most important fighters who's ever fought. And she should be recognized as such. But I think because of the way it ended and because of the way she handled herself, there's people who are not willing to grant her that,

who would not give her that grace. And that's unfortunate. But damn, Ronda Rousey was good, man. Like, there's no other way to say it other than that. like she was freaking good. I had a few moments that stood out for me, but they're on the lighter side. So maybe I'll pass the Jed and then we could circle back and no.

No, no, go for the few moments. Because honestly, I don't have too much to say. You guys have sums it all very well. There's two moments that I remember and they're less, they're less serious. And they're really not even like Rhonda moments necessarily. They're involving Rhonda. One of them, Jed teased earlier,

which is the call in the Holly Home fight where Mike Goldberg says the line and I quote now Rogan is acknowledging Ronda Rousey gassing out and Mike Goldberg says takes a lot of energy to be a rock star sure that line that that is one of the greatest things that's ever happened in MMA I will never forget it um it's just like the absurdity of that line in that moment where Ronda Rousey's about to get pieced completely up um has stuck with me forever and then another one which has been immortalized on the internet was Rhonda Rousey on the heels of the biggest win of her career, UFC 157, just defeated Liz Karmouche.

History is made. The first female fight has happened. Rhonda Rousey defends her belt, walks out of the cage, riding high. And as she's walking out of the cage, she clears security, and she sees people she recognizes in the crowd,

right on the other side of the barrier. And she starts walking over, and as she walks over, she opens her arms up for a hub, standing in her periphery is Karen Bryant, TV host and reporter Karen Bryant, who thinks that the hug is for her. And she jumps into that hug with Rhonda, Rhonda with one arm on Karen and one arm on the people she knows. Rhonda turns to her. I'll never know what was said there.

Rhonda turns to her and Karen slinks away. Gracefully, I might add. She does this very well. and then Rhonda returns to the hug for who it was intended for. The identification that I had in that moment, the secondhand embarrassment, but knowing that feeling, a feeling like somebody's coming for you, and it wasn't for you, I can never shake that.

I can never forget that moment on the heels of history. Ronda Rousey just did one of the most incredible things of all time. That moment after will always stick with me. And it barely has anything to do with Rhonda, but God bless that moment. Who among us? Who among us? Who among us?

For a number of reasons that I will not mention here, but I love that. And I'm probably going to go watch that moment as soon as I'm done with this. It's the best because you're right. There's no many how it. It doesn't matter how many times I see it. My shoulders slink, like my neck disappears. I just cringe into myself. It's impossible not to it.

People can't see. I was covering my face as you've ramped up. I knew exactly what story. Yeah, what story. I just started covering my face as if if I covered my face, I wouldn't like see it when you, when you know, describe it.

It's rough. Yeah. Well, that's a great note to end on because the only thing I have to say about it really is that Rondo Rousey is the most important female fighter in the history of the sport. I still think to A.K.'s point, it's not just that she's important. She,

it gets lost because of, as we've said, because of how her career ended, how good she was because the people she beat were good and still are good in many respects. I think she is still a top five all-time female fighter, like pound for pound, top five based on merit. And so that's that's it. And we've, because everything else happened, we, she's become a joke in some respects. And it's just Holly Holme really kicked all of the respect for her just out the window and then the way that she handled the return.

But at the end of the day, she. she deserves to be the first woman in the UFC's Hall of Fame. She deserves all the accolades that will come to her later on when people can kind of get past it and think back on the history of the sport and just how important she was because she was, she was important and she was damn good. And that is the point of this show. And there's a reason she was always going to be the first woman that we did on this show because we honestly didn't talk about it a lot.

But like outside of being good and the first. fact that it's assumed with how shorter career is, it's just super fun to watch her work. When she was cooking, she was cooking with gas, baby. Like, and it doesn't take long. You can go watch all of her fights in less than 25 minutes as we established. And it's all, it was all fun. It is incredibly fun to watch Sarah McMahon rumble across the cage and get her knee, just guts, need out of her body.

Or to see Alexis Davis get hip tossed and then punched into into the, Netherworld or Katzenganu in that weird like rolled up arm bar that whole thing all of it was super damn damn. It's about being fun. It's about being important. It's about being good. And damn, Ronda Rousey was good. So thank you everybody for for tuning in this week. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did talking about it. Ricky, thank you for making your debut, aka Mike Heck best friends. Thank you for being with me always whenever I need you, especially with your pro wrestling expertise. I don't know who we're doing next, but we will be back in two weeks with another episode of this. And we're going to have just as much fun then because we always do.

So thanks for listening. This has been damn they were good. Love you guys.