Dr. Rhadi Ferguson on Ronda Rousey

[Burundanga]

Yup. Cain could slip and break a leg, or come in with a fever of 104, or any number of accidents. Competitors always leave a door open (soldiers too). You never give up, you always look for miracles, fighting the odds.

Or he could fight her on top of a hill.

 

[Miiiiiiighty]

We had a training session where we were rolling around on the mat with just newaza. I was a black belt at the time in jiu-jitsu. Ronda began to cry. I said, 'What are you crying about? ' She said, 'I can't do anything.' I said, 'Ronda, I'm 100kg male.' She said, 'Yeah, but I don't feel like you're supposed to beat me.'

I had known her for a while, but it got to the point where I got a little upset because I was like, 'Well, hell, what is she saying about me? Is she disrespecting me and my expertise?' And no, she's not. She does not believe that she's supposed to lose.]

She wasn't supposed to get beat under the 'right circumstances'

 

[ilfirin]

I "obviously don't know anything about judo" because I think the P4P women's great should be able to do something to a TUF-reject, and yet Ronda Rousey, who agrees with me and thinks she should be able to do something to Rhadi is just "confident in herself". Way to exercise your double standard, white knight.

If no women at Ronda's weight class should be able to throw him, why did she cry? Obviously Rousey doesn't know anything about Judo herself, right?

Are you fucking high or something?

Rhadi is a four time US judo champion, an olympian and a BJJ black belt, on top of being 220-230 lbs, and you're saying a 15-16 year old Rousey should have been able to do something? Have you even seen Ferguson grapple? He's a fucking monster.

 

[ralek4grammy]

Can someone please explain me how she's so mentally tough if she cries when things don't go her way? And how that is a staple of someone with mental fortitude?

 

[Malthian]

Are you fucking high or something?

Rhadi is a four time US judo champion, an olympian and a BJJ black belt, on top of being 220-230 lbs, and you're saying a 15-16 year old Rousey should have been able to do something? Have you even seen Ferguson grapple? He's a fucking monster.

He's not high. He's just so obsessed with bashing on Rousey that he'll look for any excuse to bash her, ignoring context, logic or reason.

The concept that a 16 year old, 140 pound Rousey can't throw Rhadi means that she sucks, forget the fact that no 135, 145, 155, 165 or 175 pound Olympic male Judoka is going to get the best of a 220+ pound OLYMPIC male Judoka like Rhadi.

Either that or he's as stupid as the people that think that because Rousey struggles with 200 pound Mousasi, who's a black belt Judoka who fights for a living that she's going to have the same issues with a 200 pound guy who's never stepped foot on the tatami.

Derp. "I rolled with a 150 pound black belt chick in the gym and she couldn't even move me! She even competed in Nationals!"

Yes, because the 150 pound person in the Gym is athletically the same as the 150 pound, world class, elite grappler that destroys national level athletes before she's old enough to drive and is facing off against the best trained, most genetically freakish athletes on the planet it's TOTALLY like the 150 pound girl at the gym. No, rolling with a woman competing in US Nationals is NOT the same as competing with an Olympic level competitor.

USA Judo is SO far behind international Judo that it's a joke. It is literally a joke to judo players from countries like Japan and France. You can walk around an international Judo tournament and the other Judoka are joking about who's going to get the US for a free pass into the next round -- that's the reputation of USA Judo. So if you're good enough to actually compete for a medal in Internationals, you are light years ahead of someone who can't win US Nationals. You might as well be comparing D1 wrestlers to a high school city champion.

Jon Jones walks around at 240. You step on a mat with him and guess what, he is PLANETS away in strength, speed and explosiveness from any other 240 pounder you've ever stepped on the mat with. People are fine with accepting he's a freak athlete that's miles away from Jonny McDojo, yet Rousey is comparable to the girl you rolled with in the gym? No, just... no.

Keyboard warriors.

 

[BRASIL WAND]

Are you fucking high or something?

Rhadi is a four time US judo champion, an olympian and a BJJ black belt, on top of being 220-230 lbs, and you're saying a 15-16 year old Rousey should have been able to do something? Have you even seen Ferguson grapple? He's a fucking monster.

It wasnt just 15 or 16 year old rousey. Ive been meaning to post this and really havent gotten around to it, but Rhadi and Ronda trained at ATT around 09/early 10 and he used to ragdoll the breaks off her.

Granted Rhadi is indeed a beast, this is one of the main reasons Ive never subscribed to her ridiculous claims of her being able to "beat anyone on the UFC roster" regardless of weightclass.

 

[Malthian]

It wasnt just 15 or 16 year old rousey. Ive been meaning to post this and really havent gotten around to it, but Rhadi and Ronda trained at ATT around 09/early 10 and he used to ragdoll the breaks off her.

Granted Rhadi is indeed a beast, this is one of the main reasons Ive never subscribed to her ridiculous claims of her being able to "beat anyone on the UFC roster" regardless of weightclass.

The only way Rousey throws Rhadi is if she catches him with something unexpected and that's going to be pretty rare. However, at that level of skill if you roll enough, sooner or later you'll lose focus and you can be caught by anyone.

Rhadi still tools her 95, 98 or 99 times out of 100. However, Rousey's never going to have a 0% chance of throwing a guy like Rhadi so in that respect she's correct.

I think the smarter people realize that nobody has a zero percent chance against anyone, just that they tend to consider anything less than 5% to be so low that it might as well be zero so they say, "If it's so low, why bother acknowledging it?"

Oddly enough, it doesn't stop people from thinking they can win the lottery or in roulette, and those provide odds like 1 in 45M+ or 1 in 35. In that sense, I'd give Rousey a better chance of beating Cain than me winning the lottery. Her odds aren't great, but they're still better than 1 in 45M.

 

[ilfirin]

He's not high. He's just so obsessed with bashing on Rousey that he'll look for any excuse to bash her, ignoring context, logic or reason.

The concept that a 16 year old, 140 pound Rousey can't throw Rhadi means that she sucks, forget the fact that no 135, 145, 155, 165 or 175 pound Olympic male Judoka is going to get the best of a 220+ pound OLYMPIC male Judoka like Rhadi.

Either that or he's as stupid as the people that think that because Rousey struggles with 200 pound Mousasi, who's a black belt Judoka who fights for a living that she's going to have the same issues with a 200 pound guy who's never stepped foot on the tatami.

Derp. "I rolled with a 150 pound black belt chick in the gym and she couldn't even move me! She even competed in Nationals!"

Yes, because the 150 pound person in the Gym is athletically the same as the 150 pound, world class, elite grappler that destroys national level athletes before she's old enough to drive and is facing off against the best trained, most genetically freakish athletes on the planet it's TOTALLY like the 150 pound girl at the gym. No, rolling with a woman competing in US Nationals is NOT the same as competing with an Olympic level competitor.

USA Judo is SO far behind international Judo that it's a joke. It is literally a joke to judo players from countries like Japan and France. You can walk around an international Judo tournament and the other Judoka are joking about who's going to get the US for a free pass into the next round -- that's the reputation of USA Judo. So if you're good enough to actually compete for a medal in Internationals, you are light years ahead of someone who can't win US Nationals. You might as well be comparing D1 wrestlers to a high school city champion.

Jon Jones walks around at 240. You step on a mat with him and guess what, he is PLANETS away in strength, speed and explosiveness from any other 240 pounder you've ever stepped on the mat with. People are fine with accepting he's a freak athlete that's miles away from Jonny McDojo, yet Rousey is comparable to the girl you rolled with in the gym? No, just... no.

Keyboard warriors.

I'd bet you Mousasi is closer to 220 lbs in that video, and yea, a legit judo black belt with plenty of submission victories.

 

[xP]

This was a really good interview. I feel like it gave me some insight into Rousey as a competitor and was informational in general. Rhadi is very well spoken and seems like a cool guy.

 

[elanimalsantana]

Him talking about how it probably sucked for her not being able to go out drinking and partying, honestly, it was probably better for her. Instead of out messing around, she was able to work more on her skills and become better. She was able to focus more on that instead of just partying and such.

Obviously her mom pushed her like crazy, too. I'm sure when she was young, she wanted to make her proud and be just like her.

Muhammad Ali apparently used to never go out partying and drinking all the time, he preferred to train and get better, even though he hated training, he still chose to do that instead of going out and having a good time.

I'm still reading this, so I can't comment on much, but IMO, Ronda being that much younger, in a way, it was kind of better for her because she could focus more. For her to be that young and to fuck up people that much older than her.. that's pretty crazy. People compare her to Mike Tyson - well, think of it this way - when Tyson was around 14-15, he was fucking up adults, some who were good enough to go pro, Tyson was knocking them out in the gym when he was that young and embarrassed them out of the gym that night or whatever.

Ronda wasn't the best in women's Judo, but still impressive no matter how you look at it.

FYI, Ronda medaled in the Olympics whereas Tyson failed to make the team.

 

[Joe Dwarf]

I'd bet you Mousasi is closer to 220 lbs in that video, and yea, a legit judo black belt with plenty of submission victories.

I'm a "legit judo black belt" and Ferguson would squash me like a bug. There is a world of difference between your average shodan guy and a top level competitor like Ferguson. I've never fought guys his level and size, but I have fought guys my size (-90) who were in the top 5 here in Canada and it was like a kid against an adult.

 

[Gorbag]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8hjwiMBwlg

 

[SirDiddymus]

Ragdolled her in "newaza"? Ferguson just stated that Ronda complained that she couldent do anything against him in newaza, a 100 kilo + BJJ blackbelt and judo olympian, when Ronda must have been 15 or 16 years old at that time.

Well Gegard Moose ass I ragdolled her while laughing about it at a much later stage in her life

 

[SirDiddymus]

FYI, Ronda medaled in the Olympics whereas Tyson failed to make the team.

Ehh yeah in a shallow field, where she lost and was brought back by a special rule to get a pity medal.

Mens qualifications can

 

[Gorbag]

Well Gegard Moose ass I ragdolled her while laughing about it at a much later stage in her life

Impressive.

 

[loisestrad]

Ehh yeah in a shallow field, where she lost and was brought back by a special rule to get a pity medal.

"special rule" meaning the actual rules. "shallow field" meaning the worlds premier female combat sport.


But keep on hatin'.

 

[Joe Dwarf]

Ehh yeah in a shallow field, where she lost and was brought back by a special rule to get a pity medal.

That "special rule" would be repechage, a standard draw scheme used in many judo competitions. In any judo competition I've ever been in it's been double knockout or repechage unless the division was small enough for round-robin. In every scheme it's possible to lose and still medal, in fact under double knockout or round-robin you can lose and still win gold.

IIRC her division was 20 entrants.

 

[Darwinambrosius]

She'd kill him in a fight with no rules though.

 

[Cro Cop Is Back]

Isn't he Kimbo's cousin?

 

[Better Every Day]

Can someone please explain me how she's so mentally tough if she cries when things don't go her way? And how that is a staple of someone with mental fortitude?

Mental toughness and mental fortitude relates to whether or not you can be made to give up or have your spirit broken, not to whether or not you cry.

Perhaps you are confused because some people cry when they give up or when their spirit is broken. That's not what is happening when Ronda cries.