Every fight Ronda Rousey has is high-stakes. She comes into all of her fights with everything to lose, and her opponents only stand to gain if they can become the first to beat the most dominant female athlete in history.
Yeah, I went there.
On Saturday at UFC 184 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Rowdy will make her latest defense of the UFC women's bantamweight title.
Rousey is 10-0 as a professional, and the opposition has had very few moments of success against her. There has never been a female who has stood so head-and-shoulders above her peers. Serena Williams, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Martina Navratilova, Cheryl Miller or any other great female athlete's career can compare to Rousey's run to this point.
The body of work might be shorter, but Rousey has been flawless.
That said, the pressure is on in a major way on Saturday. Cat Zingano is the stiffest test Rousey has faced in her now 10-fight professional career. Zingano is also undefeated. She's skilled on the ground, solid in stand-up and physically strong.
Beyond the tangible attributes, Zingano is also determined and mentally tough. There will be no intimidation factor. The best woman will win. If Zingano pulls off the upset, she'll reach a new level of fame and go down as the first to conquer the beast.
If she loses, she'll fall in line with the other women who have tried and failed to give Rousey her first defeat. If Rousey loses, it'll be one of the biggest sports stories of the day. Questions will abound about the amount of time she has spent cultivating her acting career and other aspects of the entertainment world.
While the spotlight is brightest on Rousey, she's not the only lady with a lot on the line come Saturday.
Holly Holm
The time has come for the much-hyped Holly Holm to finally make her UFC debut. Holm will be facing the tough, but very beatable Raquel Pennington in Saturday night's co-featured bout. Holm has been regarded as the finest female boxer in the world and has a 7-0 start to her MMA career.
She has star power. Holm is not just a great athlete; she's also attractive and likable. A win would further thrust her into the mainstream and carve a path toward the winner of Rousey-Zingano. Perhaps only Bethe Correia or fellow newcomer Marion Reneau would be able to make a better case for being next in line for a title shot.
If Holm loses or even looks less than impressive, the critics won't be kind. Holm knows the situation and, per MMA Junkie, she considers UFC 184 a "lose-lose" proposition:
Yeah, I feel like I’m in a bit of a lose-lose situation. The expectations are so high, how can you meet that?
You go to a movie that everyone talks about, and you go, and you’re like, "Well, it wasn’t that great." But if you go to a movie that’s really not that talked about … you don’t have this already perceived perception of how it’s supposed to be. So, that’s probably the hardest thing I’m focusing on – just fighting my fight and not feeling like I have to do this thing that takes me out of my comfort zone.
Living up to the hype is perhaps the toughest thing to accomplish in sports. That's why people like Rousey, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods are such incredible performers. We'll see if Holm can notch her first victory in the UFC after such a highly publicized arrival.
Josh Koscheck and Jake Ellenberger
If you were to try to find the perfect example of the term "crossroads bout," you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one than Josh Koscheck vs. Jake Ellenberger. Both men have lost three straight fights and face serious questions as to what the remainder of their careers will hold.
Ellenberger probably isn't contemplating retirement, but a fourth consecutive loss would seemingly make him a potential casualty to the UFC's dreaded cut line. Getting cut is only one of Koscheck's concerns. At 37 years old, he'd have to wonder whether continuing to fight is the right thing to do.
His last two losses came via vicious knockouts, and there's a good chance this one ends with someone lying on the mat. If Koscheck comes up on the short end of the stick again, he'll have to make a decision that isn't just in the best interest of his career, but his life.
Follow Brian Mazique on Twitter. I dig boxing and MMA.
