Ronda Rousey
UFC President Dana White has announced a major switch to the UFC’s upcoming calendar, as UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is heading Down Under.
Rousey (12-0 MMA, 6-0 UFC) will now defend her title against Holly Holm (9-0 MMA, 2-0 UFC) in the main event of UFC 193, which takes place Nov. 14 at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The fight has been expected to take place at UFC 195 on Jan. 2 in Las Vegas.
White announced the change in plans tonight on ESPN’s SportsCenter before taking to Twitter to predict that UFC 193 will break an all-time attendance record for an MMA event.
The UFC’s all-time attendance record was set at April 2011’s “UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields” event, which drew an announced attendance of 55,724 to Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
ESPN’s Brett Okamoto also reported that the previously announced headliner of UFC welterweight champion Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit has been scratched from the card and will be rescheduled for a later date, which UFC officials subsequently confirmed. Lawler suffered a thumb injury, necessitating the change, and a new date for the fight has yet to be determined.
“Ronda Rousey was huge for us in Brazil,” White said, referring to Rousey’s UFC 190 win over Bethe Correia. “She was well received there, and it was just a phenomenal event. It did very well on pay-per-view here in the U.S., and she’s obviously a huge superstar for us. Australia’s an important market for us, so we’re going to bring her out there in our first real big stadium show, and we know she’ll break the record out there.”
Since debuting with the UFC in early 2014 as the inaugural women’s 135-pound champion, Rousey has dominated the competition. In fact, in 12 career wins, only one opponent – Miesha Tate – survived past the first round. In her last four fights, the 28-year-old Olympic bronze medalist has dominated the competition with quick wins over Sara McMann (66 seconds), Alexis Davis (16 seconds), Cat Zingano (14 seconds) and Correia (34 seconds).
The pay-per-view juggernaut now faces Holm, who turned her attention to MMA in 2011 while closing out a solid 33-2-3 pro-boxing career. After winning a title with Legacy FC in 2014, the 33-year-old signed with the UFC and posted victories over Raquel Pennington (split decision) and Marion Reneau (unanimous decision). Although previously seen as the most likely opponent to defeat Rousey because of her proven striking skills, Holm has somewhat underwhelmed in the UFC because of the narrow victories despite her heavy-favorite status.
With the change to the card, UFC 193 now includes:
- Champ Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm – for women’s bantamweight title
- Mark Hunt vs. Antonio Silva
- Michael Bisping vs. Robert Whittaker
- Jared Rosholt vs. Stefan Struve
- Akbarh Arreola vs. Jake Matthews
- Kyle Noke vs. Peter Sobotta
- Anthony Perosh vs. Gian Villante
- Ricardo Abreu vs. Daniel Kelly
- Steven Kennedy vs. Richard Walsh
- Brendan O’Reilly vs. William Macario
For more on UFC 193 and UFC 195, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.
