Rousey: ‘My MMA striking is the best in the game’
“My MMA striking is the best in the game,” said Ronda Rousey ahead of her Judo vs. wrestling fight Saturday night vs. olympic wrestler Sara McMann.
Modern mixed martial arts was born out of an explicit attempt to show which martial art was the best. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu vs. Shootfighting vs. boxing vs. wrestling was the order of the day.
All top fighters now possess excellent striking, wrestling, and submission skills, but sometimes interesting style vs style matchups present themselves at the highest levels. Saturday night offers a fight between Olympic medalist in wrestling Sara McMann vs. Olympic medalist in Judo UFC women’s welterweight champion Ronda Rousey.
Rousey is widely believed to have the best ground game in women’s MMA, but she says she had the best stand up game, too.
My MMA striking is the best in the game, said Rousey.
“With judo I spent so many years with a certain posture that the hardest thing was adjusting it.
I’ve reached a certain level of competition where what’s required out of striking to come into the clinch to grapple is a lot more complicated than at the lower levels. It requires much more high-level footwork and striking to be able to use grappling at all.
No woman in the UFC has yet to score a knockdown due to a standing strike, but Rousey said all it needs is time.
It’s a younger side of the sport that’s still developing, said Rousey. It’s going to need a little more time before we can reach the same standard the guys are at because they had a big head start.