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Holly Holm And Ronda Rousey's Battle Analysis

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On Saturday, November 14th, 2015 Holly Holm and Ronda Rousey climbed in to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) cage and began what would come to be known as one of the greatest “underdog” matches in the twenty-first century. Everyone knew from the second this fight was scheduled that it would be legendary because going into the fight both amazing women were undefeated. That being said, Ronda Rousey had twelve straight wins, compared to Holly Holm’s lowly nine, in mixed martial arts that is. With both women being undefeated, and no chance for a tie, it set the stage for a fight to be remembered.
Ronda Rousey was very heavily favored to win the fight, known as UFC 193, based on her higher win record and her fighting style. Ronda was …show more content…

It could be said that Holly Holm used strategy to beat Ronda. Holly used a SouthPaw (left handed) fighting stance compared to Ronda’s Orthodox (right handed) fighting stance (Sherdog.com, n.d.). With Holly being a lefty it gave her an advantage over Ronda. Holly also has a full inch longer reach than Ronda and is an inch taller than her as well. Refer to Figure 1 to see the full statistics of these two incredible women and one can see that the two women are fairly evenly matched with a slight advantage to Holm. Critics talked about Holm’s possible advantages in an article by Sherdog.com: “Holm’s length, size, and striking ability could very well drag (Ronda) into deeper waters than we are used to seeing Rousey in and may even allow her to steal some rounds” (UFC 193 Statistical Matchup, 2015). The main advantage that Holly had over Ronda was her kickboxing history. Holly’s kickboxing record is unmatched, and it was this kickboxing history that went on the win her the fight.
Along with 33 boxing wins and two world championships Holly Holm also holds the only title for the first combatant, male or female to win world titles in both boxing, kickboxing and mixed martial arts. This just goes to show how versatile of a fighter Holly Holm really is, even at 35 years of …show more content…

Holly, the underdog, was definitely not expected to win, and ended up winning the entire match very quickly, just like David. As Malcom Gladwell explained to us in his article, it was not luck that let David win, it was statistics (How David Beats Goliath). Ronda was more experienced in UFC and had a longer history in mixed martial arts but it was no comparison to the versatile skills that Holly had. This is very similar to Goliath, because Goliath and Ronda might have been extremely favored but it will never change the fact that David and Holly had better skills. David with his distance weapon and Holly with her boxing and kickboxing career. Holly had the odds stacked against her, but the statistics on her

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