Rousey didn't even get the chance to get that high clinch to try and take it to the ground.
That's the thing. Rousey was NEVER that good. She was and is a very good judoka and came into a nascent women's MMA division where most were trained in Muay Thai...and were relatively new to it.
Well, a very skilled judoka will eat a less experienced Muay Thai fighter for lunch every day NOT because one style is better or because the FIGHTER is better, but because while both utilize that high clinch, the Muay Thai fighter uses that high clinch to control the head, and direct attacks with hands, elbows and knees. Her focus is above the waist and on striking. The judoka while in the same grasp will be focused on foot placement and hip placement and her focus will be below the waist.
Here's the difference. The Muay Thai fighter has no "submission" or KO punch from that high grasp. It's a general starting position from which a plethora of attacks begin. It's a default position and Muay Thai fighters fall into it, almost as a matter of rote.
The Judoka, on the other hand, DOES have many submissions straight from the high clinch, immediately from one of several throws. Generally, the easiest is an armbar, but other submissions can also be present.
THAT is why Rousey appeared to be so dominant.
The football equivalent was Bill Walsh's WCO. Most of the league either ran a 3-4 with heavy interior LBs or a 4-3, still with pretty big LBs and LBs were basically considered as the second line of defense in stopping the run. So, Walsh started creating mismatches by dicing up defenses using horizontal crossing routes, slants and posts and 4 and 5 WR sets that put these big LBs in coverage, an obvious mismatch.
It wasn't that the other team was inherently worse at football. It's that there was a schematic mismatch that was easily exploited. Combine that with talent and history is made.
THAT is what Rousey was able to exploit. She came along at the beginning of Women's MMA. She had supreme confidence AND her style wasn't just counter to the prevailing wisdom that women needed to train traditional Muay Thai striking, but it specifically FED ON one of the basic striking poses in Muay Thai.
If you go back to her fights, you'll see that she simply performed what amounts to basic judo on people who had no answer for her basic judo.
Then came Holly Holm. Her team realized that if Rousey couldn't get that high clinch, her game was suspect. Perhaps more than suspect. Now, Holly was a cautious fighter. I think had she more confidence, she could have finished Rousey in the first round, but the hype was so immense that the caution seemed justified. Still, the game plan was sound and Rousey was KO'd with a perfectly delivered kick to the neck.
Undeterred, her boxing coach/boyfriend who stinks on ice and should be banned from MMA coaching forever... brought her into this fight without express instructions NOT to trade with Nunes. Rather than concede the striking and work to take the fight to the ground (where, actually, I submit that Rousey had actually LESS of a chance because Nunes is a legit BJJ black belt with sick submission skills) and work submissions off of takedowns, he thought Rousey could trade a bit before going in for the clinch.
I've been watching boxing since the mid '70s and I had to really go back through my fight Rolodex to find a combination of laser like straight punches and explosive power in combination. Pernell Whitaker. Like no joke. Or maybe Gerald Maclellan. So, either you have a coach who knows not a freaking thing about the sport of Boxing/MMA...OR... He just doesn't know how to watch film. Either way, he's useless.
Normally, I can't stand Herb Dean for his idiosyncratic method for determining stoppages, but he got this one right. WAY right. Rousey was out on her feet, not defending herself and could only take more punishment. The fight was over and he stepped in to prevent Rousey from taking any more punishment.
And that's the point. Once the high clinch was taken away, Rousey became a glass jawed suspect fighter that would only be competitive with a fighter who couldn't fight off the high clinch.
The hype machine painted her as this dominating presence. That's crap. Ali dominated. Tyson dominated. Marciano dominated. Joe Louis dominated. Sugar Ray Leonard dominated. The list is pretty short. The list is even shorter for MMA because... there are so many more paths to victory that no one dominates. Demetrius "Mighty Mouse" Johnson, Anderson "Spider" Silva, Jon "Bones" Jones... there's probably a few more in boxing and MMA, but not many. Dominating winnows the list considerably. That's why Georges St. Pierre isn't on the list. He won plenty, but never dominated.
What we see now is a traditional MMA fighter regardless of gender in Amanda Nunes who's fantastic at striking, a legit black belt in BJJ and thus presents a serious danger standing up and on the ground. Women's MMA hasn't seen the likes of her, yet. That's standard in Men's MMA. The cool thing as that plenty of up and coming women ARE like this and Rousey's days of being able to exploit what was essentially a loophole due to "getting in early" were always numbered.
She's still marketable, she can still do movies and endorsement and she WAS, absolutely, responsible for helping to elevate the status, if not the actual skill level of Women's MMA. I think an argument can be made that the famous avatar of Rousey did most of the work rather than the actual fighter, but that's another post.
If Rousey wants to stay? The ONLY way she can stay is if she gets a LEGIT boxing coach... like Uncle Mayweather, who will make her stay away and build up her hand speed and ability to counter and force people to come into her. THEN as they come in, she can shoot the high clinch and throw and go for the submissions. But with no hands like now? She's target practice for anyone with any skill.
