McMann: Not tapping is foolishness, instead I won’t get there

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has had eight pro MMA fights. Each one ended up with the opponent tapping to an arm bar, in an average of just over three minutes.

Sara McMann spoke to media from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas during which Rousey said she was willing to die.

Athletically you could say we’re close to equals and that’s why people are so excited about this fight,” said Rousey as transcribed by mmafightcorner.com. “But I think that I’m more of a fighter than she is. I can tell that this title is not as important to her as it is to me. She has a kid at home and she has to go home to that kid and I can afford to be selfish where she can’t. I’m willing to die in there and she can’t.

People in McMann’s circle have said if she gets caught in an armbar, she may not tap. But McMann says correctly that the best way to deal with a submission is to not get into it.

I feel one of the objects of the sport is to not get into one of those positions,” said McMann. “That’s where you win. But if you get there, if somebody catches you and they get the better of you, I don’t feel that there’s any need to be an idiot. There’s no use losing and being injured and that would be if it was any other submission also. Like I don’t look at it as ‘oh somebody so brave and tough’ that they now have to get a surgery and they lost. Like that’s kind of foolish to me.

There’s toughness and then there’s foolishness. My whole, everything that I’ve been training for is to not get caught in that position just as much as when I was wrestling it’s not like I’m, you know, not going to acknowledge if somebody pins me or something like that and let my arm get broken or whatever in a wrestling move. The object is not to get there, that’s how you win. I don’t want to just not lose.