UFC 193: What happened when Ronda Rousey put her Bantamweight Championship on the line versus Holly Holm?
UFC 193 hailed from Melbourne, Australia on November 14, 2015 and broke the UFC attendance record with a massive crowd of 56,214 filling the Etihad Stadium.
The MMA loving city were deafeningly loud, for an incredible night of action but no one expected the outcome of the main event clash between defending Bantamweight Champion, Ronda Rousey and her challenger, Holly Holm.
Few gave former Boxer, Holm a chance against the former Olympic medallist and submission expert. Holm was the superior striker naturally but Rousey appeared to have so many more weapons at her disposal.
However, Rousey did not look right from the get go. Perhaps encouraged by her Knockout victory over Bethe Correira in her last fight she came out swinging wildly which just seemed like a baffling game plan against a former professional Boxer whose best chance of winning came standing up. To go blow to blow with her was just madness.
Rousey's much maligned striking coach Edmond Tarverdyan has to shoulder much of the blame here. Rousey continually charged at Holm, looking to close the distance but kept getting caught by brilliant shots from expert puncher, Holm.
It was almost as if he had convinced her she was an excellent striker and could beat Holm to the punch by being the aggressor. All that approach succeeded in doing, was accelerate her demise. Between rounds, he inexplicably could be heard telling Rousey that she was doing an excellent job when he should have been telling her to dramatically alter her approach.
As it was, Rousey never played to her strengths; namely her wrestling, at all. Her game plan should have been simple; evade Holm's strikes, take her down and submit her. It never happened and the fact that Rousey contemplated suicide following this defeat, is just such a sad state of affairs, especially when her loss could so easily have been avoided.
Holm gave Rousey a brutal lesson in striking and caught the champion with a heavy head kick followed by punches for the devastating Knockout win. It was one of the biggest MMA upsets in history. Rousey suffered the first loss of his career and Holm became the new Bantamweight Champion.
For Rousey, it was a chastening experience and she took a full year away from the sport before returning at UFC 207. Unfortunately, that event would not be a happy one for Rousey either.
Aussie, Robert Whittaker beat Uriah Hall via Unanimous Decision in a bout which started slowly but improved down the stretch.
Whittaker's unique striking caused Hall problems throughout. Having lost the first two rounds, Hall had to come out in the third which he did, which made for a highly entertaining slugfest in the third. With the win, Whittaker moved up the Middleweight ranks.
Women's Strawweight Champion, Joanna Jedrzejczyk clashed with Valerie Letourneau and displayed exactly why she was an unbeaten champion with an imperious performance. Despite that fact, as a spectacle, the fight was pretty dull.
Letourneau showed great bravery, trying to close the distance but took huge amounts of punishment in doing so. However, in the eyes of her Aussie fans, who appreciated her toughness, they seemingly believed a star may have been born.
Unfortunately, the UFC didn't think so when they cut her in 2017 but she has successfully rebuilt her career in Bellator.
At UFC 193, it was the Strawweight Champion who successfully defended her title via Unanimous Decision.
Aussie, Mark Hunt beat "Bigfoot" Antonio Silva in a re-match of their more famous bout at UFC Fight Night 33. That one resulted in a Draw and was the fight of the night. However, by this point in time, Silva had declined as a top line fighter due to health issues and was no match for Hunt the second time around.
Hunt tagged the giant repeatedly until Silva fell to all fours. A few punches and that was all she wrote for a decisive knockout victory in round one.
Finally, Jared Rosholt beat Stefan Struve in a lacklustre encounter. Struve was coming off a big win over the legendary, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueria but never looked like winning this one. Rosholt took Struve down and kept him there for three rounds.
Rosholt was not impressive in the Unanimous Decsion win either, as he didn't really do anything in the mount other than hold Struve down.
UFC 193 was a mixed bag of a show. The main event will be forever remembered for it's historical significance but the action elsewhere was largely uninspired.
If the viewing experience was not so great, the financial success of the show gave UFC reason to be cheerful. The card pulled a colossal 1.1 million buys; one of it's biggest numbers ever.
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