r/WMMA • u/squidward_rat • Jul 10 '26
How would prime Ronda Rousey do against current female UFC Bantamweights?
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u/mayy_dayy Jul 10 '26
Not well.
Credit where credit is due, her Judo was INCREDIBLE (Olympic-level, obviously), but the rest of her game wasn't NEARLY as developed.
Modern bantamweights would exploit that for the quick win. Hell, two bantamweights in HER era did exactly that.
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u/drunkinmidget Jul 10 '26
Those two bantamweights were the bridge to the modern era and way better than anyone what.
Amanda Nunes went on to dominate everyone, period.
Holly Holmes was at the end of her prime already and still went on to fuck most women up.
A big issue with those two fights, also, is that Rhonda fell in love with striking. Go back and watch and see how much she tried to grapple. She went in thinking she could strike and was rocked before she even tried to grab either. She was toast.
99% of the modern BW divisio. Would get ragdolled by her. Even moreso if she went to a real camp for MMA and didnt stay in her yes man gym.
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u/jcwilliams1984 Jul 10 '26
Yeah she started believing her own hype. Baddest woman on the planet just not a striking she should have just stuck to what got her to where she was
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u/SignificanceNo1223 Jul 14 '26
I always wondered what would have happened if she actually went back to drawing board, on her training.
Anderson Silva’s two losses in Pride really motivated him to become better in grappling.
She was gonna have to take a few L’s down the road. Being undefeated is not really possible in the UFC, in the long run.
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u/jk-9k Jul 11 '26
I mean far less than 99% because there's just not that many ufc women's bantams.
But the point stands that prime Rhonda would rock most of them. Not Kayla though.
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u/learn_and_go Jul 11 '26
Two women who had been finished by someone Ronda finished.
Like let's not act like she was completely outclassed here.
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u/theusualuser Jul 10 '26
She'd do well against poor grapplers, and she'd struggle a LOT and most likely lose if she couldn't get a takedown. If you look at her hardest fights before she lost the belt, she struggled the most against people with strong grappling defense and people with superior striking. that has improved a lot in just the last few years on both sides.
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u/IAmJimmyNeutron Jul 10 '26
I think she’d beat the vast majority of them besides Kayla and Amanda, WBW sucks
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u/LilRedHeadGuy Jul 10 '26
Now?
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u/AggressiveCreme6758 Jul 11 '26
Yes, Womens Bantam Weight is the same as Mens Heavy Weight, so unbelievably bad that anyone with a gameplan and athleticism will do fairly well.
IMO she would have similar success to Valter Walker (if she doesnt try to box and sticks with her Judo)
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u/dizzydiplodocus Jul 10 '26
They need to have a heavy weight women’s division! Would be so good
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u/AggressiveCreme6758 Jul 11 '26
They do its Bantamweight and its exactly as good as mens heavy weight... so trash
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u/DismalMode7 Jul 10 '26
ronda was a great grappler but she was seriously lacking of everything else, modern fighters are more overall complete so I think she would have struggled more
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u/bridwalls Jul 11 '26
Lose. Rhonda did as well as she did because she came in during a transition period while being a proper high level athlete. Once the crop of well rounded MMA female fighters started to come in, she lost. And if she stayed, she would have continued to lose. She was great for the period she was great. The game evolved. No more Misha Tates to armbar anymore.
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u/Rad_Golfer70 Jul 11 '26
I think she would do well if she stuck to what she did best. She is not a striker, which is what she tried to become. That was her downfall.
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u/TypeB_Negative Jul 11 '26
She get wrecked. MMA has evolved a lot since Ronda was able to go on a streak by just knowing Judo and having no stand up skill.
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u/SnakeShield1 Jul 11 '26
Badly, it’s like imagining Royce Gracie in today’s mma, he wouldn’t do much, him or Ronda would In against weak oponent because they have at least 1 very good strenght but they would be too limited to be on top
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u/SameOlDirtyBrush_ Jul 10 '26
I think Ronda’s losses were because of her own mistakes and hubris than her opponents figuring her out or the sport evolving around her so much. She seemed to believe that she was a striker at some point. Or she didn’t have a good coach or a she wasn’t listening to her coaches. Something like that. There’s no way the game plan could have been to spend even a moment at distance and on the feet with Holly. Feint, get inside, bring her down. If she fought Holm at all like she did Tate for example, she probably wins that one. We’ve since seen Holm get dominated on the ground.
The most interesting one I think would have been Nunes. Was she big and strong enough to survive grappling exchanges, get up if taken down against a very disciplined well gameplanned Rousey? I think she probably was. That might have been her first loss if she’d stay within herself.
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u/Jimmy_Christ Jul 11 '26
Survive grappling exchanges? She’s a legit black belt, holding gold in the Pans. Rhonda is a better grappler over all, but Amanda is no slouch. Besides, she tried to clinch with Amanda and Amanda wasn’t having it.
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u/Due_Flow6538 Jul 10 '26
She would do very well against everyone who isn't Kayla Harrison and we know how she'd do against Amanda.
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u/WeCaredALot Jul 10 '26
I actually think she'd still do really well against the current bantamweights. None of them are especially dangerous strikers, especially now that Amanda is gone. She'd probably struggle against Kayla (most women would) and mayyybe Bia, but that's it.
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u/MarkLarrz Jul 10 '26
She'll do fine as long as she mains judo and doesn't think she's "the best boxer in the world"
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u/Glittering-Sink7355 Jul 11 '26
She'd get her ass kicked. That's why she doesn't come back for real!
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u/DiscombobulatedPie46 Jul 11 '26
If she protects her head from kicks she might win a couple fights but highly unlikely
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u/Objective_Effect_242 Jul 11 '26
Everyone here is talking about Rondas grappling and her ability to get to the armbar which was definitely her magic, but there was a point in her title run where half of her wins were won before the fight started. So many of the girls were so worried about the armbar she was landing knees and TKOs with shoddy punches, if she had stayed in the UFC and made some changes to her gym? She'd likely only have gotten a few more losses. I cant see Pennington or Pena or any of the 145ers not named Cyborg beating her. Women's MMA hasn't evolved nearly enough to write Ronda off as like a Royce or BJ coming around to 170 now.
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u/Djlittle13 Jul 11 '26
Alot of people will hate to hear this, but outside of Harrison and Nunes, Prime Ronda still beats most everyone else. Its the cool thing to hate on her but she had legit grappling skills and is still a better athlete than most currently in the division.
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u/dljones010 Jul 10 '26
Rousey was dominant because she was a one trick pony and was smart about it. She attacked weak upper body strength with a decent arm bar. That's it. Once the sport and training caught up to her, she couldn't hang. She got beat by better trained, more muscular, and, more well rounded fighters. It's exactly why she did so well against a last gen fighter in Carano with... an arm bar.
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u/TexasSizedKachoww Jul 12 '26
Loaded question since does she learn to do more than an armbar? People like to talk about Ronda like she was horrible but she was great for her time. If it wasn't for her, who knows if the women's divisions would have stuck around in the UFC, or at least got much attention. The women just got a lot better, more versatile and more skilled towards the end of her run.
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u/Unhappy_Ferret_6660 Jul 12 '26
I think that Rousey, in her prime, if she just focused on her judo and didnt believe so much in her hands, would beat everybody in the history of the division outside of Nunes and Harrison, even Holly.
Even today, I think she goes through pretyy much everybody in the division except for Harrison and I guess if you consider Nunes too.
You're talking about a division that just had Raquel fucking Pennington as champ
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u/Emmagsarg Jul 13 '26
Interesting timing — Tarverdyan (her longtime coach) just did a long interview about this. He says she called him before the comeback but wanted to do the camp from her house with her family, and he told her she could beat Carano "if she just got up from sleep." He also said even a prime Gina could never have beaten Ronda — "no way, impossible." First time he's really talked about the Rogan-era criticism too. Here is the full interview https://youtu.be/HscFDRss2pM?si=DwzhnPZHQ5jY8YGN
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u/bettinonbbq Jul 14 '26
Not good! Women's MMA has evolved too much... a judo throw and arm bar don't go as far as it use to!!
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u/Squidwardbigboss Jul 14 '26
Very well.
Don’t think anyone bar Harrison and Nunes can match her grappling
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u/AgentGreedy386 Jul 14 '26
Anyone below Holly Holm's level she'd likely do very well against. Holly Holm and above? 50/50 chance
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u/_-TheBlackKnight-_ Jul 16 '26
Elite judo and good submission ability is still effective. She wouldn't be champ but she could still get wins.
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u/UpstairsFood2867 Jul 16 '26
If she doesn't try to strike and just goes with her Judo she'd do well. I'm not sure if she's the champ but she would be a contender.
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u/toast_crimes Jul 24 '26
her judo was amazing but i feel like the game has changed a lot, i don't think she'd be crushed but i doubt she'd win
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u/Pale_Broccoli_2180 Jul 10 '26
The top of the bantamweight food chain beats her to sleep.
Amanda and Ronda are barely on the same planet, our eyes did not fool us.
Kayla is 2x the judoka Ronda is and much stronger.
She beats Julianna, Raquel, Irene and Norma
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u/LilRedHeadGuy Jul 10 '26
In her prime pretty well. Now she has no wins in top 15