One listened to her mother, one didn’t

Both UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes and former champion Ronda Rousey have mothers who were combat sports athletes. Rousey’s mother, Dr. AnnMaria De Mars was famously the first American to win a world championship in Judo. She supported her daughter’s decision to enter Judo; when Ronda broke her toe in a Judo match, Dr. De Mars nurtured her daughter’s drive by having her jog twice around the gym on it.

Nunes’ mother Ivete was a boxer, and her uncle fought Vale Tudo. Amanda’s mother had cornered the uncle, and got her daughter first into Capoeira, and then into Jiu-Jitsu and boxing. Bot mothers were role models for toughness, who profoundly understand combat sports, and raised tough, world-beating daughters.

Each mother had advice for her daughter. One listened. One didn’t.

Dr. De Mars implored Ronda to switch camps in the most direct language human beings are capable of.

Ronda trained with an idiot, said Dr. De Mars after her daughter’s last loss. She trained with an idiot and a fraud. … Ronda has a lot of talent. She came into that gym with a very strong background of training at the Olympic level and it carried her a long way.

She needs to get away from some egomaniac fraud and be herself. Ronda as herself can beat anybody on the planet. I’m sad about it but you become an adult and make decisions. Sometimes you make mistakes and hopefully you learn from them.

The difference between me and these other fighters’ moms is that I actually was a world champion. I didn’t just make it up and put it on my website. I actually really did compete for 14 years. So when someone is talking about coaching I know if it’s bulls*** and this guy is a complete fraud.”

I don’t claim to know everything but I know what it takes to win a world championship. I know what good coaching is. I told Ronda more than once, ‘I know what training to beat the world looks like and this isn’t it.’

If she changes gyms she could go dramatically further. Even if she was with a good coach I think going to a different place would really improve her. When you’re with someone who wants to keep you from going to other places, that’s a bad coach that doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

I hope [Tarverdyan] loses his license or goes to jail because either of those is a possibility. I think if she changes gyms she has an outstanding chance of winning. If she doesn’t? As a statistician, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you do the same things with the same people you can expect the same results.

Nunes’ mother too had advice for her daughter.

“My mother used to box, and I followed her footsteps into training, said Amanda to Guilherme Cruz for MMA Fighting. She loves fighting. My uncle used to fight Vale Tudo, and my mother even cornered him in some of his fights. She always says, ‘the first strike has to be yours. She can’t touch you before you touch her. You have to intimidate her.’”

The first strike was Amanda’s. And the rest was history – the lead story on CNN.