With speculation rampant, Dana White doesn't think Ronda Rousey will split from camp

Ronda Rousey and coach Edmond Tarverdyan

Ronda Rousey’s knockout loss to Holly Holm this past Saturday was so shocking that it has some in the MMA community speculating that Rousey needs to leave her gym for a fresh start.

Rousey (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) suffered the first loss of her career in the UFC 193 headliner in Melbourne, Australia, when Holm (10-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC) dominated her in the standup game and knocked her out in the second round to win the women’s bantamweight title in a massive upset.

The Cincinnati Bengal’s lost for the first time this NFL season on Monday night; it’s not likely they’ll fire longtime head coach Marvin Lewis because of it. Yet some believe Rousey should break away from her Glendale Fighting Club home and coach Edmond Tarverdyan.

On the latest episode of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, UFC President Dana White told Rogan, a longtime UFC color commentator and analyst, he doesn’t think Rousey will bail out.

“If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” White said of the reason Rousey has stayed with the camp as long as she has. “The thing is, now what do they do? At the end of the day, Edmond’s a guy who really cares about Ronda and her career and all of that stuff. I think as a team they’ll sit down and try to figure out what went wrong and what needs to be fixed.”

Rogan, though, took some issue with how Tarverdyan coached Rousey on Saturday in between the first and second rounds. After the first round, Rousey looked exhausted. Her face was already battered from Holm, a former pro boxing champion, picking her apart on the feet.

Yet Tarverdyan could be heard telling Rousey in her corner that she had a good first round. All three judges scored the first 10-9 for Holm.

“I like Edmond, I talk to that guy all the time, I always hug him when I see him, (but) I do not like what he did in the corner (between rounds),” Rogan said. “He wasn’t honest with her. He told her she did great, like, ‘Great round, champ.’

“Maybe he was trying to psychologically pump her up, but she needed technical advice. She needed someone to tell her what she’s doing wrong and how to correct it. He’s more of a boxing coach than he is an overall MMA coach.”

And perhaps, Rogan speculated, that came back to bite Rousey in the fight with Holm. Rousey was as much as a 20-1 favorite to win the fight heading in, though the odds closed much lower than that. But despite Holm’s prestige in the standup game, most thought Rousey would finish the fight quickly like she had 11 of her 12 previous pro bouts.

But Rogan said he wondered how Rousey would respond to Holm’s striking.

“To figure out how to beat every different style of martial artist, we’d talked about the one thing we hadn’t seen Ronda deal with was somebody who knows how to kick,” Rogan said. Cat Zingano was the only possibility, and Cat just made a crazy mistake and rushed Ronda. But what Holly Holm was able to do was keep her on the outside, a lot of kicking – and that’s kind of missing in Ronda’s game, the kicking aspect. I don’t recall ever seeing her throw a kick.”

Rousey plans to take some time off before returning for her next fight, which is expected to be against Holm in a rematch White believes she’s earned, and Holm already has agreed to.

When she does, will it be with the same personnel in tow? Time will tell.

For complete coverage of UFC 193, check out the UFC Events section of the site.