The Nostradamus Chronicles. How I predicted the Rousey/Holm Fight
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll just leave this screenshot here. On mmafighting.com on November 9th, I made the comment posted below. You can see the full comment here (scroll down and search for my name)
Here's a direct quote, just in case the screenshot isn't very clear:
People are just succumbing to bandwagon and recency bias. One day, Ronda will be beaten, and when that happens, it will be because styles make fights:
1. Holly is bigger than Ronda. This matters because Ronda muscles her opponents into the clinch. People don;t realise that Ronda is a huge bantamweight. She’s bigger than most of her opponents. For example, Ronda is 5 7". Bethe was 5 5". And Ronda is muscular and beefy on fight night. She won’t be able to muscle Holly, who is 5 8".
2. Holly instinctively fights on the outside. This is why she hasn;t been very effective in the UFC- she doesn;t press for the KO. But against Ronda, this will be an advantage. Ronda will be chasing Holly and eating shots to the face as she always does. This time though, the shots will be thrown by someone with punching power.
3. Holly has the best kicking game Ronda has ever faced. Ronda doesn;t kick. She doesn;t practise defending kicks. Holly will attack her knees with oblique and low side kicks. Holly will stop Ronda rushing in with side kicks. Holly is the only female MMA fighter who uses side kicks regularly and effectively- and they are designed to stop people rushing in. She also has multiple head kick KOs, and Ronda has terrible head strike defence. Put 2 + 2 together, and you get Ronda being kicked hard in the face and going down.
4. Holly has the intangibles: an undefeated record, endless cardio, aggression, a champ’s heart (this is not Alexis Davis) and a fantastic coaching team that has enough sense to know they should drill Judo throw defence.
Remember this comment next week. And don;t be surprised.
I embedded this gif to illustrate my prediction:
And this of course is what happened:
I'll be happy to write technical analysis articles related to future fights for anybody who wants them.