If you listen to the oddsmakers, Bethe Correia doesn’t much of a chance to beat Ronda Rousey in Saturday’s UFC 190 pay-per-view main event.
Correia (9-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) is nearly an 11-1 underdog at some books. They’re incredibly long odds for a UFC title fight. The fact that almost no one is giving her a chance to wrest the UFC women’s bantamweight belt from the seemingly iron grip of Rousey (11-0 MMA, 5-0 UFC) has appeared to have little effect on the undefeated Brazilian.
In fact, Correia seems downright confident as the biggest fight of her career approaches, and she’s so far as to be dismissive of the Olympic bronze medalist’s judo.
“Every athlete has weaknesses,” Correia told MMAjunkie in her native Portuguese. “There’s no perfect fighter. For every attack, there’s a counterattack or defense. We’ll see during the fight. I’m feeling fine about her judo. I’ve been studying it. I’m not afraid to be taken down – that is, in case I get taken down. … I’m not going to play her game. I already have a strategy in place. I’m doing my thing. I’m not going to simply defend and wait for her to make the first move.
“I do think anxiety has negatively affected her opponents. I don’t fault them. In my opinion, Ronda has faced fighters more complete than she herself is. But they messed up. I don’t fault them as much as the marketing that surrounds Ronda. I think the fans and the media portray Ronda as superior to everyone else. That affects people psychologically. Her opponents stepped into the cage feeling inferior to her. It also helps boost Ronda’s self image. I think that has helped her win too.”
Much of the hype for Saturday’s fight, which takes place at HSBC Arena in Rio de Janeiro, has centered around trash-talk from the challenger. Intentionally or not, Correia infuriated Rousey by bringing up suicide. Rousey’s father committed suicide when she was 8, causing Correia’s pleas to Rousey – “Please don’t kill yourself; don’t commit suicide,” she said – to strike a very ugly chord.
Correia also brought up Rousey’s past problems with an eating disorder and drugs, continuing a very personal style of trash-talk. It was perhaps this accumulation of personal attacks that led Rousey to call Correia’s eventual apology “disingenuous.” Now, Rousey is issuing promises that Correia will look different walking out than when she walked in to the fight.
Correia isn’t fully backing down from her smack talk, however.
“I believe this provocation game has to be natural,” Correia said. “If I tried to convey an emotion about an opponent, which I didn’t truly feel, everyone would know it was fake. It has to be very spontaneous. You should be yourself. It’s no use to play a character that’s different from who you are. People would hate that. When you follow your instincts, people enjoy that better.
“Every athlete should project their personality through marketing but never getting away from their true selves. I feel differently about each opponent. So, what I tell one person will be different from what I tell another. What I tell each opponent is from my heart. It’s what I’m feeling. Some people will like it. Others won’t.”
When the two meet in the octagon, it will be closing in on the one-year mark since Correia’s last fight. The challenger was dealing with serious vision issues that led to her time on the sidelines.
“I had an eyesight problem,” Correia said. “It required a medical procedure. I had to spend a few months without taking hard strikes to the head. I was only allowed back to hard sparring and fighting with medical clearance. I didn’t want to end up retiring early. I had to excuse myself from training for some time and listen to my doctor, as I’m a professional athlete.
“An eye injury is much more serious than fighting with an injured arm. It could force retirement. I don’t wish to retire so early. I want to continue fighting for many years to come, so I followed all instructions to the letter. Vision is serious business, and as soon as the doctor gave me clearance, I let the UFC know. As far as my fight with Ronda Rousey, ever since I beat Shayna Baszler, it was already supposed to happen. It was just a matter of time.”
Rousey has staked out a position as the face of women’s MMA and, at times, the face of the UFC. Her natural charisma and incredible dominance have landed her on the cover of major magazines and in motion pictures. It was also that combination of skill and charisma that pushed the UFC to bring women’s MMA to the octagon.
Correia, however, thinks it would have happened with or without Rousey. And, she believes that she had a chance to be the one to motivate the UFC to embrace women’s MMA had Rousey not beaten her to it.
“(UFC President) Dana White really wasn’t interested in women’s MMA,” Correia said. “Truly, Ronda was able to awaken that interest in him. I think, ultimately, the UFC was going to put on women’s fights with or without Ronda. If it wasn’t her, it’d be someone else.
“I was personally working toward that goal. It could have been me or another girl on the roster. At that moment, she got the exposure, but it could have been anyone. It was the right moment; she was there, and he saw her. But, regardless, the UFC was going to open their doors to women’s MMA due to the quality of the fighters. The technical level and heart of these women is something the fans enjoy. They were already asking for women to enter the UFC. It was going to blow up anyway. As a champion, I know I will play a great part in this. Ronda already did her part. That’s it. She’s not doing anything beyond what she’s accomplished. I want to approach this differently. I want to spend more time with the fans than with the media.”
For more on UFC 190, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
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