Ronda Rousey

[Orion Paximus]

It wasn't the head an arm toss, if you watch the vid link I posted you'll see that she ended up actually finishing the toss and landed with Liz in a kesa gatame. This is where she screwed up. Liz was incredibly strong and broke the kesa and took her back. Luckily Ronda's tougher. But, if you watch further, after she got Liz off her back and that initial bit of stand up, she went right back to the kesa hold down. It looked like in both instances she was trying to figure 4 Liz's arm. This is where she was over-relying on Judo. Kesa is a great Judo hold down, not so much for BJJ or MMA because there's too much opportunity to escape, which Liz almost did while Ronda was f*cking around trying to establish the figure 4. Watch further and maybe the coach yelled at her, or the Ceaser Gracie training kicked in because you definitely see a light go off in her mind. Because she transitioned from Kesa to side, then to full mount. She got her position and hit the arm lock. The Kesa to Side to mount is pretty standard BJJ.

So to reiterate, it wasn't the takedown, Ronda's bad @ss, and Judo's the strongest. Osu!

Off topic, but did Hollywood decide that Gina Cerano wasn't cut out for movies?

[MightyB]

Off topic, but did Hollywood decide that Gina Cerano wasn't cut out for movies?

Apparently they feel she needs voice work. I loved Haywire - but she's not your stereotypical starlet. Twiggy fems who look silly kicking arse all the rage rather than casting a good looking female who definitely can kick arse. They just aren't giving good parts out to the likes of Cerano. I'd rather her play a role like the black widow in the avengers because it'd be more believable.

[GeneChing]

We've been following that since it was announced last year: F&F6

Should be a good part for her as she doesn't have to bear the burden of top billing. It drops in two months.

[Orion Paximus]

lol I guess standing next to all those muscled up dudes will certainly make her look more lady like. Don't get me wrong, I dug haywire.

[Lucas]

I liked her small part in Blood and Bone. not the best movie, the story was meh...but MJW is a badass i would like to see him as black panther.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Haven't watched the TUF for the last few seasons but caught an episode last night, I admit I have much more respect for Rhonda as a fighter, an athlete, her hot bod, and genuine down to earth persona. And can she fill out a pair of jeans...Good Lawwwrrrrrddddd!!!

Call me gf....

[Syn7]

I like how she says "real nasty" is better than "fake nice". I think that's how she said it.

But if you saw the earlier episodes, you may wonder if she isn't a lil bit crazy. Unstable crazy.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Agreed, the animosity and vitriol between these two ladies is quite genuine, Misha Tate comes across in a bad light.

[GeneChing]

innerestin'

AnnMaria De Mars, Ronda Rousey + the Art of the Armbar

February 12, 2014By Eugene S. Robinson

Why you should care
Because saving all that sugar and spice stuff for someone who could actually use it would be a much better use of your time.

“When I fought a woman from Cuba, I broke her ****ing arm.”

If AnnMaria De Mars cared about us excusing her French, she’d have asked us to excuse her French. But this she did not do as she told us exactly what she said to her Olympic Bronze medalist daughter in an effort to cool a moment of competitive panic before an international match.

That’s right. Those are her gentle words of motherly advice. And they are entirely in keeping with the armbars that the 5-foot-2-inch De Mars used to use to wake the same daughter up for school in the morning — the daughter who became the undefeated Bantamweight Ultimate Fighting Championship belt holder, Ronda Rousey. Rough way to welcome a kid to the day? Well, if winning were going to be easy, everybody would win. Which is not at all how the real world works, really.

Fact File
Armbar: Mixed martial arts technique that involves bending the elbow of your opponent’s arm back against the joint, using a part of your own body as a leverage point.

”It’s rare to see someone get to that level of athletic achievement and be really relaxed about getting there,” said Dallas Winston from the sports commentary site SB Nation. “Or nice. Or friendly,” he laughs.

But De Mars is all those things: nice, friendly and not so relaxed. When we catch her on a rare day off, what we want to know above anything else is this: What happens in the heads of folks for whom winning becomes a kind of addiction? It was something De Mars wondered herself when Ronda, an athlete just like her other three kids, announced that she wanted to be a champion, too. Just like her mom.


Source: Esther Lin/Getty
Ronda Rousey greets her mom after beating Miesha Tate at a Strikeforce event on March 3, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio.

”I took it really seriously since I knew exactly what it took to do that. No way was I going to work harder than her for something she said that she wanted,” said De Mars. So she did her due dilligence and rounded up all of the people that she had met on her way up — world team judokas, Olympic champs — and asked them what their parents and coaches did to lay the groundwork for success. It’s that kind of methodical approach that helped her transform from an overweight 12-year-old Air Force brat in Alton, Illinois, born to nonathlete parents, into a national competitor by age 16.

“My mother drove me over to the local Y when I was about 12 and literally pushed me out of the car,” says De Mars. ”And she told me ’GET EXERCISE,’ before she pulled off.” Of the available exercise options — swimming, track and judo — judo seemed to make the most amount of sense “for a short, fat kid who didn’t want to run or put on a swim suit.”

De Mars won her first tournament just six months later, and by her second tournament she took second place competing as a 13-year-old against 16-year-olds. And if it wasn’t clear before now, she was hooked. Hooked and killing it academically, so much so that she got to college at age 16. There, she joined an exchange program and got herself to Japan where she could study business, sure, but also judo. Not so strange when you know that women’s judo began with a competition back in November 1926, and when you know that the inventor of judo, Kano Jigoro, taught it to his wife and daughters.

Still, studying judo in Japan is like studying math at MIT (it was recently made nearly compulsory for school-age kids in Japan). Not only are the coaches tough — and sometimes tougher on Westerners — but the training more than occasionally tips over into brutal.

But De Mars came back in 1978, at the age of 20, to win the U.S. Senior Nationals, U.S. Collegiate Nationals and the U.S. Open. Her academic career continued at the University of Minnesota, where she earned an MBA. But the competitive fire burned hot still, and in 1981 De Mars won bronze in the British Open and Tournoi d’Orleans. The following year saw her ranked No. 1 by the United States Judo, Inc., which she rounded out with wins in 1983 at the Pan American Games, the Austrian Open, the Canada Cup and the 1984 World Judo Championships.

Then, in short order, she had kids, married, was widowed, remarried, earned more degrees (an MA and a PhD in educational psychology), began a 27-year career in IT consultancy and co-founded a company to improve life in disadvantaged communities on Indian reservations. She may not compete any longer, but she’s still teaching judo and staying involved in the U.S. Judo Association. And through it all, she got her kids to that magical place: winning.

“Look, I have coached lots and lots of kids,” De Mars says, and almost on cue we can hear kids laughing and playing in the background of her call from Southern California. ”But with Ronda, I saw a kid that absolutely refused to lose. She wouldn’t give up. She always wanted to practice. She asked a judo champ friend of mine what he would coach his girls to do in order to beat her! And after talking to those champs, we started doing things that other people don’t do. Or what they do, but [we’d] just do more of it. Not just the day of the competition but all the time. To be the best.”

And there it lingers. With four happy kids (one’s an ESPN sportscaster, Maria Burns Ortiz) in wildly different walks of life, this businesswoman and blogger is always willing to scrap online or in person about judo, her kids or just about anything, really.

”To be the best.” **** straight.

[GeneChing]

As if ring girls are good role models for young girls.

There's a vid if you follow the link.

Video: Arianny Celeste on Rousey-McMann, 'Overhaulin' and her lone street fight
By MMAjunkie Staff February 22, 2014 4:01 pm

Picks are coming in on both sides of tonight’s UFC 170 main event between Ronda Rousey and Sara McMann – most of them on Rousey, judging from the betting lines.

But without reading too far between the lines, Arianny Celeste might be siding with the underdog.

Rousey has been given ample credit for helping build women’s MMA in a short amount of time. But Celeste, who has been a UFC Octagon Girl for nearly eight years, wouldn’t mind seeing Rousey up her game elsewhere, as well.

“I don’t really like the way she carries herself,” Celeste told MMAjunkie Radio on Friday night, just a half-hour after appearing on stage at the weigh-ins for UFC 170 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. “I don’t think she’s a good role model for women. I think that women should empower each other and give each other a little pat on the back.”

That pat on the back was what was missing when Rousey was critical of the UFC’s ring-card girls for being “talentless” and criticizing Celeste and Brittney Palmer for appearances in Playboy magazine. Not long after, Rousey appeared mostly nude, but covered up, in ESPN The Magazine’s annual “Body Issue.”

Celeste appears to have kept things from turning into much of a beef between the two by just leaving it alone, for the most part.

“I’ve personally been talked about by her, and I don’t even know her. I’ve met her twice,” Celeste said. “She said a couple things in her Maxim interview. A lot of people pointed it out to me, but I didn’t really acknowledge it.”

Celeste said that regardless of what anyone thinks about what it takes to do her job, hey, give her some credit.

“She’s paving the way for women’s MMA, and I’ve made being a UFC Octagon Girl into a career. She should definitely recognize that and be nice,” she said.

Celeste did say that regardless of any talk, the women’s side of the sport is coming on strong. But tonight, she’ll be interested in seeing how McMann does against Rousey as the underdog.

“They work their tails off and they’re doing it just as good as the boys,” Celeste said. “I really like McMann’s energy. She’s had really good energy, so good for her for being up there and headlining a UFC.”

Celeste has parlayed her UFC job into other gigs, as well. Beyond regular modeling shoots around the world, she’ll return in March to “Overhaulin’” on the Velocity cable network, a show that takes unsuspecting car owners by surprise when their vehicles are turned into their dream machines. That show airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET.

And while jobs like that are no doubt a continued part of her future, don’t expect to see Celeste stepping into the octagon any time soon – despite apparently having some chops if it ever came down to that. She’s not afraid to drop some bombs if she’s put in that position.

“It was after I’d been with the UFC a couple years. I didn’t have any kind of name or anything, but some girl was picking on me and I had to defend myself,” Celeste said. “She physically tried to attack me, so I had to defend myself – and I ended up hurting her pretty bad because I learned a lot of things like hammer punches and kicks to the stomach. That was pretty dirty, but I had to do it.

“I’m not too proud of it, but I had to defend myself. I’m a very non-violent person.”

For the latest on UFC 170, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of the site.

MMAjunkie Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

[GeneChing]

That was a lot of UFC foreplay for just 16 seconds.

Rousey continues reign of destruction, but now what?
Ben Fowlkes , USA TODAY Sports 12:47 p.m. EDT July 7, 2014
2014-07-06 Ronda Rousey

(Photo: Stephen R. Sylvanie, USA TODAY Sports)

Ask Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White who could possibly beat undefeated women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, and the answer is a perplexing mix of anybody and nobody.

"This is a chick that could leave this building, walk down the Las Vegas Strip and wreck every guy on the Strip," White said after Rousey's 16-second destruction of Canadian challenger Alexis Davis at UFC 175 on Saturday night.

White added later, "Anybody on any given day can beat anybody if they're on the top of their game. ... You never know what can happen when two people start throwing punches and putting their hands on each other."

FOR THE WIN

Dana White was furious with UFC announcer Joe Rogan over a question he asked Ronda Rousey

That about sums it up with the most dominant champion women's mixed martial arts has known. Her greatest, and maybe only, adversary within the current UFC is the inherent uncertainty of human events.

She could lose because, hey, anybody could lose. If you're playing the odds, however — and the oddmakers pegged Rousey (10-0 MMA, 4-0 UFC) a 20-1 favorite over Davis at one point — you'd be a fool to bet against her.

That leaves the UFC with a vexing proposition: Now what?

While it might be fun on occasion to see Rousey dispatch challengers in less time than it takes to microwave a Hot Pocket, it's doubtful fans will keep paying for it indefinitely.

What Rousey needs is a challenge worthy of her abilities.

MMAJUNKIE

UFC 175 results, photos: Ronda Rousey destroys Alexis Davis in 16 seconds

The best bet on the current roster is Cat Zingano (8-0, 1-0), who became the top contender with a TKO victory over former Strikeforce champion Miesha Tate in April 2013. But before Zingano could cash in on her title shot, a knee injury sidelined her. According to White, she might need to win another fight once she returns in order to reclaim her spot in line.

That leaves the UFC with two viable options outside the organization. The first is former boxing champion and bantamweight sensation Holly Holm (7-0), with whom the UFC is said to be finally making progress after difficult contract negotiations. Holm has the striking skills to exploit the weakest area of Rousey's game, though that doesn't necessarily mean she'll be able to keep the Olympic judoka at bay long enough to exploit the advantage.

Then there's Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino (12-1), a hulking Brazilian buzzsaw who carries her own baggage. There are questions about whether she could drop down to 135 pounds from her usual fighting weight of 145 pounds, or how long she'd be able to sustain such a dramatic physical change. There's her failed drug test for steroids in 2011, which gives White pause, especially at a time when the UFC has come under the microscope after a string of high-profile doping controversies.

There's also the fact that, according to White, the UFC already offered Justino a contract once, and was turned down.

"You either want to try and come in and be the world champion or you don't," White said after UFC 175. "I mean, it's fun to talk about all this stuff, but the reality is a whole other ballgame."

The reality is also that the UFC has a breakout star in Rousey, but it's rapidly running out of contenders who can put up a fight worth seeing. While she might be the greatest thing to happen to the female side of the sport, even Rousey can only get by for so long as a one-woman show.

[TaichiMantis]

Bwahahahaha!

[Stickgrappler]

I made 11 animated GIF’s of the UFC 175 - Ronda Rousey X Alexis Davis fight.





Enjoy 8 more GIF’s here:

http://www.stickgrappler.net/2014/07...xis-davis.html

[TaichiMantis]

She just won an ESPY for best female athlete...but was not there to accept the award because she had surgery yesterday. Hmmmmm....

Earlier, she was dissed by thug Mayweather:

Whether offensively sincere or simply uninformed, Floyd Mayweather Jr. doesn't think much of the UFC's Ronda Rousey.

Ronda Rousey is 10-0 fighting in the UFC. She knocked out No. 1 contender Alexis Davis in 16 seconds at UFC 175 in early July.
Mayweather, speaking Tuesday during a stop on his media tour to promote a September rematch with Marcos Maidana, said he "didn't know who he is" when asked about Rousey, repeating it when a reporter sought to clarify what Mayweather had said.

The media exchange was videotaped and published online by BoxingScene.com.

Rousey has said she thinks she could take Mayweather in a no-holds-barred MMA-style street fight. And UFC president Dana White has agreed, saying Rousey "wins that fight and hurts him badly."

But Mayweather wasn't biting beyond his referring to Rousey as a man, instead staying on message about his fight with Maidana, which reprises their May bout in which Mayweather won a majority decision...

I'd love to see her rip him a new one..

[GeneChing]

She made WSJ. Wonder how many people Sly & Dana had to pay off to make that happen?

Female Fighter 'Rowdy Ronda' Rousey Takes on Hollywood
Ronda Rousey, the first female UFC fighter, will star in 'The Expendables 3' and 'Entourage'

By Erich Schwartzel
July 18, 2014 3:57 p.m. ET


Ronda Rousey in Las Vegas earlier this month. Associated Press

Ronda Rousey joined the Ultimate Fighting Championship less than two years ago and hasn't lost a match since. The 27-year-old mixed-martial arts star carries a perfect record of 10-0, and quickly subdues female opponents with moves like a swift kick to the liver or an arm restraint that leaves opponents yelping in pain.

But over the next year, Ms. Rousey—called "Rowdy Ronda" for her style inside and outside the UFC cage—is taking on a new challenger: Hollywood.

It hasn't always been an even match. As Dana White, the president of the UFC, put it: "Our people have starred in a lot of bad movies." (Some forgettable examples: "The A-Team" and "Cyborg Soldier.")

Ms. Rousey's multi-chaptered career has taken her from teenage Olympian to mixed-martial arts fighter to trailblazer: She's the first woman allowed to fight in the previously male-only UFC, a fast-growing fighting league marked by no-holds-barred matches in octagonal pens where the mats get covered in sweat, saliva and blood. Now, a new cast of trainers—from acting coaches to Hollywood agents—is set on helping her punch through another glass ceiling and become a viable female action star.


Ms. Rousey on a movie poster promoting 'The Expendables 3' Lionsgate

Her first test comes next month with "The Expendables 3," where she'll join muscled 1990s action stars like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the sequel about a team of mercenaries. It's the kick-off in a flurry of roles that include appearances in the coming film adaptation of "Entourage"—the HBO show about a young actor navigating his own Hollywood stardom—and a part in "Fast & Furious 7," the 2015 installment of the car-chase franchise known for its diverse, big-tent casts.

Ms. Rousey's possible crossover appeal speaks to the UFC's evolution since the early 2000s, from one of gimmick-driven backyard brawls to a multimillion-dollar industry with a Fox Network deal trying to break into the mainstream. Still, while the UFC has a devoted following, it doesn't command the ratings that translate into automatic recognition among general audiences. Ms. Rousey is getting help from agents at the William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC talent agency, eager to help her juggle both careers—as they did with former WWE wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The agency is also aiming to show Hollywood it can manage athletes as well as movie stars since purchasing the IMG Worldwide Inc. sports and marketing agency for $2.4 billion last December.


Ms. Rousey in the ring Associated Press

Ms. Rousey's supporting parts are a run-up to a planned starring role in "The Athena Project," a movie about a team of female counterterrorism agents. The film is in the early stages of development with Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. Producers cast her after one sit-down meeting and are working on the script now.

That film "is what I would really like to make into my franchise," Ms. Rousey said. "Like Stallone has his 'Rambo' and Schwarzenegger has his 'Terminator' and Bruce Willis has his 'Die Hard.'"

Hollywood has certainly tried to find a female action star before, from Milla Jovovich in the "Resident Evil" series to Angelina Jolie's turns as Lara Croft in the "Tomb Raider" adaptations and Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" franchise. The film industry has even drafted from the mixed-martial arts world, when Steven Soderbergh cast fighter Gina Carano in the 2011 action film "Haywire." The movie bombed, grossing $18.9 million, but notices for Ms. Carano were strong and she has continued acting.

Ms. Rousey says she has something most other actresses do not: credibility as a fighter. She's not "some teeny-tiny little actress who spent the whole day getting her face exfoliated," she said. "I see some of these chicks doing these action roles and I'm like, what is she doing? She looked ridiculous even running on a treadmill!"

It remains to be seen if audiences will take to Hollywood's typecasting of a real-life fighter. Until now, Ms. Rousey has been best known in the UFC world, where her brutal and efficient style makes her a top-billing attraction. On Wednesday it helped her win the Best Female Athlete award at the ESPY Awards, a top sports accolade given by the ESPN network. A recent three-hour signing in Dallas attracted so many people that Ms. Rousey could only meet with fans who stayed overnight for a place in line.

Ms. Rousey comes by her fighting nature honestly: Her mother, AnnMaria De Mars, was the first American to win a match at the World Judo Championships in 1984. Ms. Rousey's childhood, split between California and North Dakota, was spent undergoing hard-core training with her mom from an early age. Ms. Rousey's athletic career began as a swimmer before moving on as a teenager to the judo world.

Ms. Rousey's father committed suicide when she was a child, and she can stiffen when fans feel so familiar with her story that they greet her as "Ronnie"—the nickname he gave her as a child.

Ms. Rousey turned to mixed-martial arts, or MMA, fighting after winning a bronze medal in judo at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 at age 21. She has been famous since the first UFC match in early 2013, as the female fighter who convinced Mr. White to let women into the highest level of MMA fighting after he repeatedly said it would never happen. That decision is still met with backlash from some viewers, but for Mr. White, the move has expanded his organization's customer base and retail opportunities considerably. At Ms. Rousey's bouts, pink toddler-sized T-shirts sell for $20.

The UFC doesn't break out merchandising or audience figures for Ms. Rousey's pay-per-view bouts, but she has quickly become a top draw for the organization, filling Nevada's 12,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center with tickets that can sell for several hundred dollars. Her fan base is more diverse than the typical young male crowd seen at UFC events: At a recent match, a 9-year-old boy and a group of eight lesbians from Seattle were among those attending.


From left, Glen Powell, Antonio Banderas, Kelsey Grammer, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ms. Rousey promoted 'The Expendables 3' in Cannes in May. Getty Images for Millennium Film

She was a muse to some in Hollywood before the UFC came calling. Screenwriter David Franzoni, who co-wrote "Gladiator" starring Russell Crowe, saw her winning her Olympic medal on television while he was writing at home. "She looked charming and brilliant and then beat the crap out of people," he said.

Several years later, Mr. Franzoni, who still looks at photos of Ms. Rousey for inspiration when writing female action roles, mentioned her to Doug Ellin, the creator and director of "Entourage."

"My only hesitation was—how do I know she can act?" said Mr. Ellin.

To that end, Ms. Rousey, now based in Los Angeles, has been using Skype to work with an acting coach while training for fights and getting pointers from co-stars like Mr. Stallone. The "Rambo" star told her, "Don't be afraid to go over the top, because it's easier to scale it down than to rev it up."

One thing she doesn't seem keen on scaling down in Hollywood: the pull-no-punches style that's endeared her to fighting fans.

"If Natalie Portman said any one of the crazy things that I say all f------ day long, it would be all over [the news]," she said. "But everyone's used to me."