Ronda Rousey= Most accomplished fighter with least competent head coach?

jk7707 said:
She is the Royce of her division. Started extremely skilled in one particular facet of MMA and it was enough for her to dominate in a field of opponents who had nowhere near the expertise to neutralize her one advantage. I don't think her coaching had a whole lot to do with it.
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Except of the last 4 opponents she's finished 3 were stopped with strikes - 1 with a series of knees and 2 KTFO with one punch. I doubt she learned how to do that on her own.
 
Oh and Brock Lesnar takes this award .. who even coached him?? Guy came in , trained for what 1 year and won the hw belt lol if I weren't for his illness= one can only wonder
 
The Best JG said:
Dude this is a fringe division in a fringe sport. U are comparing an olympic medalist (which edmund had nothing to do with) to soccer moms.
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Yea sure. I guess Holly was the only "real fighter" Ronda ever fought and by golly she got exposed and lost. That would make sense if Holly still looked like a "real fighter" and didn't get choked the fuck out by one of the soccer moms Ronda beat twice. Oh but wait, Amanda is a "real fighter", she'll beat Ronda and expose her again or she might lose and in which case, she's just a soccer mom.
 
War Pig said:
I assume you are capable of identifying who is a good coach and who is a bad one so perhaps you can go into detail on why Edmund is such a horrible coach. Just saying he's horrible doesn't mean anything. I know how limited Ronda was when she started off in MMA and how far she's come in trying to be a well rounded fighter.
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You can make a decent argument (in fact Rousey's mother does just that, and was doing it before the Holm fight) that Edmund was unable to teach her even the most basic rudiments of defensive boxing. Even after several years she still had zero head movement horrible footwork, and people were pointing it out for several years before it led to her one sided loss to Holm. Its especially bad because her style required her to get into a clinch, and wading through your opponent's punches (instead of slipping them) is never a good long term strategy. A different style of fighter might not have needed those skills, but in her case they should have been a focus of her training (which again, people were pointing out long before her loss).

So why didn't she learn something so basic? Its not that hard to learn; if you go to any boxing club you'll see twelve year old kids with just a couple years of training with much better footwork and head movement than Rousey. And that's despite the fact that Rousey is a world class athlete with extremely good co-ordination and discipline, who should have picked it up the basics instantly.

The natural instinct is to blame that on coaching (if a world class athlete hasn't picked up a basic skill after several years it suggests bad coaching) but of course its possible that Edmund tried, but Rousey simply refused to listen for whatever reason. If you're a star you get to ignore your coach.
 
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blaseblah said:
That was about the most useless advice he could give her. She needed to 1) avoid getting countered and 2) get Holly to the ground, and he gave her nothing on how to accomplish that.
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Well, actually learning how to accomplish that is supposed to be done in training, not during the fight. However, since Edmund was the guy responsible for her training he's still responsible.
 
AnotherOldGuy said:
You can make a decent argument (in fact Rousey's mother does just that, and was doing it before the Holm fight) that Edmund was unable to teach her even the most basic rudiments of defensive boxing. Even after several years she still had zero head movement horrible footwork, and people were pointing it out for several years before it led to her one sided loss to Holm. Its especially bad because her style required her to get into a clinch, and wading through your opponent's punches (instead of slipping them) is never a good long term strategy.

So why didn't she learn something so basic, that if you go to any boxing club you'll see twelve year old kids with just a couple years of training with much better footwork and head movement than Rousey. And that's despite the fact that Rousey is a world class athlete with extremely good co-ordination and discipline.

The natural instinct is to blame that on coaching (if a world class athlete hasn't picked up a basic skill after several years it suggests bad coaching) but of course its possible that Edmund tried, but Rousey simply refused to listen for whatever reason. If you're a star you get to ignore your coach.
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She has a good jab that she uses to close distance. Head movement and foot work takes more than a few years to master and Ronda can't just focus on one aspect of mma. That's why you don't see boxers do well in mma and why mma fighters wouldn't do well in boxing. Ronda's striking is not the worse in the division and it's not the best and that's fine because she's the best grappler in the division by far.

When you see a fighter with really good striking it's almost always to the detriment of their wrestling and ground. Holly is the perfect example. She's been training with Jackson's for years and still can't sprawl and has beginner level knowledge of submission defense and BJJ. The same with Conor. He hasn't got a clue on the ground. Great footwork, timing and head movement from the both of them though. Is that their coaches fault?
 
saminex said:
? Conors coach took him from a potential plumber to a 2 weight world champion.
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Mostly attributed to conor id imagine. Look at it this way, whos the second best fighter hes train, if hes such a great coach?
 
War Pig said:
Duke was training with Josh Barnett for several of her losses and she still might be training with him now, not sure. She stopped training with Edmund a while back.

Baszler was unfortunately past her prime when she finally got into the UFC. She's one of the greatest female grapplers ever in the sport and was a true pioneer.

Travis Browne, was he ever really that good? 2-3 in the HW division fighting the top competition. Losses to Arlovski, Werdum and Cain. He's not a top level fighter but not the worse either.

Jake Ellenberger is another fighter past his prime. He did TKO Matt Brown though.

Marina Shafir only has 3 career fights and her judo is not on Ronda's level. Shafir is now pregnant and probably won't ever fight again. Her heart was never in the fight game.
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Jesus Christ man, what exactly do you consider evidence of someone being a bad coach? So when a fighter loses it's all their fault, but when they win it's due to great coaching?

By your logic there is no evidence that anyone is a bad coach. Fuck it, I'm a great coach, prove me wrong.
 
I disagree.
I think the coach who seems to be the least qualified is the coach of Liz Carmouche.
He doesnt seem to know much.
Could be wrong of course.
 
War Pig said:
She has a good jab that she uses to close distance. Head movement and foot work takes more than a few years to master and Ronda can't just focus on one aspect of mma. That's why you don't see boxers do well in mma and why mma fighters wouldn't do well in boxing
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War Pig said:
Wrong. Hayastan is primarily a place to train judo and grappling and she still trains there. Several fighters at Hayastan, including Karo and Manny G, suggested she go train her striking with Edmund. She didn't just pick his name out of a hat. Edmund has a background in Muay Thai and has fought professionally in mma. He was the WBC national welterweight champion in Muay Thai.
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He took two fights in MMA after Ronda had already won the Strikeforce belt.

Edmund had never been an MMA trainer prior to Ronda.
 
War Pig said:
She has a good jab that she uses to close distance. Head movement and foot work takes more than a few years to master and Ronda can't just focus on one aspect of mma. That's why you don't see boxers do well in mma and why mma fighters wouldn't do well in boxing. Ronda's striking is not the worse in the division and it's not the best and that's fine because she's the best grappler in the division by far.

When you see a fighter with really good striking it's almost always to the detriment of their wrestling and ground. Holly is the perfect example. She's been training with Jackson's for years and still can't sprawl and has beginner level knowledge of submission defense and BJJ. The same with Conor. He hasn't got a clue on the ground. Great footwork, timing and head movement from the both of them though. Is that their coaches fault?
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Her jab isn't bad, but a jab alone isn't enough to close distance to get into clinching range without some head movement. For a lot of fighters (GSP for instance), the jab was an excellent setup because they would follow by changing levels into a double leg, so their opponent's counter would go over their head. In her case she would jab, and then reach with out stretched arms trying to get koshi guruma (neck wheel), all the time her head held high as a steady, easy to hit target; Holm wasn't the first to tag her coming in, but was just the most effective. Meanwhile GSP rarely got punched on his way in, even in just his first years of MMA (fewer than Rousey has at this point) against considerably better strikers than anyone Rousey has faced.

Yes, it takes years to master footwork and head movement, but she doesn't have to be Whitaker or Mayweather level, even the basics as shown by most three year old amateurs would do the trick, since she doesn't have to stand in the pocket, she just has to move through it without getting hit hard. And unlike those amateurs, typically school kids who only have a few hours a day to practice, she's a full time fighter, and even dividing up her training into different areas has more time to spend on boxing and head movement than 95% of amateur boxers - and has had five years to do so. And yet she shows absolutely no head movement (seriously, has she ever slipped even a single punch) and very bad footwork. How is that possible? Any normal boxing coach who had even an average teenager for two hours three times a week would produce much better defensive boxing than that in a couple of years. She's had five and more hours, and is far more naturally gifted than 99% of amateur boxers.

Yes, extremely good striking is a sign of specialization which doesn't work. But she only needs adequate striking, and only defensive striking at that. Look at Frankie Edgar for instance, a wrestler with much better head movement after five years than she had. Or BJ Penn in his first five years (and he's considerably better than her on both the ground and feet). Even Matt Hughes, wrestling specialist, slipped punches getting into the clinch even when he first started. Or just about any of the UFC fighters of her generation (the men anyway); all have the basics of foot work and head movement, while having very solid ground games.

This is what her mother, who knows how quickly she's capable of learning, got so mad about. In five years you can't learn even the rudiments of defensive boxing? Again, we're not talking about being great, she just needs the level of a three year amateur boxing. And yet she looks like an absolute beginner in her footwork and head movement.
 
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There's no denying that Edmond is a shit coach, because he's a striking coach.

Now, Ronda doesn't kick because of her knees, so basically punching and knees in the clinch are all her striking weapons, so you would think they'd be actually good... but her boxing is just utter garbage.

She has 0 footwork and her technique is dreadful. We've all seen it. These are facts. Sugarcoat it as much as you want, but Ronda has made 0 progression when it comes to her MMA striking, she just has power but 0 technique. So yes, Edmond has done jackshit with Ronda. At this point if I would've been Ronda's coach the results would've been the same.
 
AnotherOldGuy said:
Yes, extremely good striking is a sign of specialization which doesn't work. But she only needs adequate striking, and only defensive striking at that. Look at Frankie Edgar for instance, a wrestler with much better head movement after five years than she had. Or BJ Penn in his first five years (and he's considerably better than her on both the ground and feet). Even Matt Hughes, wrestling specialist, slipped punches getting into the clinch even when he first started. Or just about any of the UFC fighters of her generation (the men anyway); all have the basics of foot work and head movement, while having very solid ground games.

This is what her mother, who knows how quickly she's capable of learning, got so mad about. In five years you can't learn even the rudiments of defensive boxing? Again, we're not talking about being great, she just needs the level of a three year amateur boxing. And yet she looks like an absolute beginner in her footwork and head movement.
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My favourite example is Randy Couture. Like Ronda, he needs to get to the clinch to do his work, his striking was fairly basic and he didn't have speed or power, yet he was able to close the gap and get to the clinch using his head movement, footwork, and basic striking techniques, even against bigger, better, faster strikers. Everyone knew that old man Randy wanted the clinch, but very few could avoid it, he'd almost always find a way to punch, duck, or slip into a clinch.
 
AnotherOldGuy said:
Her jab isn't bad, but a jab alone isn't enough to close distance to get into clinching range without some head movement. For a lot of fighters (GSP for instance), the jab was an excellent setup because they would follow by changing levels into a double leg, so their opponent's counter would go over their head. In her case she would jab, and then reach with out stretched arms trying to get koshi guruma (neck wheel), all the time her head held high as a steady, easy to hit target; Holm wasn't the first to tag her coming in, but was just the most effective. Meanwhile GSP rarely got punched on his way in, even in just his first years of MMA (fewer than Rousey has at this point) against considerably better strikers than anyone Rousey has faced.

Yes, it takes years to master footwork and head movement, but she doesn't have to be Whitaker or Mayweather level, even the basics as shown by most three year old amateurs would do the trick, since she doesn't have to stand in the pocket, she just has to move through it without getting hit hard. And unlike those amateurs, typically school kids who only have a few hours a day to practice, she's a full time fighter, and even dividing up her training into different areas has more time to spend on boxing and head movement than 95% of amateur boxers - and has had five years to do so. And yet she shows absolutely no head movement (seriously, has she ever slipped even a single punch) and very bad footwork. How is that possible? Any normal boxing coach who had even an average teenager for two hours three times a week would produce much better defensive boxing than that in a couple of years. She's had five and more hours, and is far more naturally gifted than 99% of amateur boxers.

Yes, extremely good striking is a sign of specialization which doesn't work. But she only needs adequate striking, and only defensive striking at that. Look at Frankie Edgar for instance, a wrestler with much better head movement after five years than she had. Or BJ Penn in his first five years (and he's considerably better than her on both the ground and feet). Even Matt Hughes, wrestling specialist, slipped punches getting into the clinch even when he first started. Or just about any of the UFC fighters of her generation (the men anyway); all have the basics of foot work and head movement, while having very solid ground games.

This is what her mother, who knows how quickly she's capable of learning, got so mad about. In five years you can't learn even the rudiments of defensive boxing? Again, we're not talking about being great, she just needs the level of a three year amateur boxing. And yet she looks like an absolute beginner in her footwork and head movement.
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I've said it countless times and I'll keep saying it. Ronda has decent striking. Her problem is striking defense. Her head is almost always in a straight line and it's easy for an experienced striker to time and locate. For the division, Ronda has average to better than average boxing. Obviously, Valentina, Holly and Germaine represent the top level and comparing grapplers, wrestlers and judokas to them is a bit unfair. It's like saying Holly's training is complete shit and she needs to find a new coach because she has a white belt knowledge of submission defense and doesn't know what a sprawl is.
 
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