It is on!
It is finally here, Saturday night November 14th 2015, from Melbourne, Australia UFC 193; Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm. One of the most anticipated women’s MMA matches in the Bantamweight division worldwide, and certainly one of THE biggest matches, if not THE biggest fight for the Duke City, as all us here will see one its own Holly Holm “the Preachers Daughter” stepping into the Octagon. As a long time fight/combat sports fan, as well as calling Albuquerque my home all my life, I thought the night of July 18th 1997 Johnny Tapia v. Danny Romero in Las Vegas, Nevada would never get any bigger than that. Some 18 years later, I stand to be corrected as UFC 193 will probably surpass that great event. The difference you may ask, its easy Tapia and Romero were world renowned fighters as well as highly respected, for the fight fans that followed their weight division everyone knew how formidable they were. As for locally it had a town split, for years leading up to the fight, and when it happened that night in Vegas, and Johnny Tapia ultimately won, the feud was over and all in the Duke City were proud of both fighters and that was that, history was put in the books. This fight between Holm and Rousey is way different, this is one of our own, a quiet, relatively obscure champion (boxing) going up against the Juggernaut that is Rousey, this is for all the aces, the magnitude of this fight means so much more, because of the current champion Holm must face. I’m not gonna get into all of the strategy and tactics both fighters will have to do in the Octagon, especially for Holm, we all know what must happen. However can she win? Will she win? Will she be the female version of Buster Douglas to defeat the giant Mike Tyson? I say it happens, put aside any homerism, you may feel I have, there may be some of that I won’t lie, and the need to go against the grain is somewhat there, it would be boring to toe the line and go along with the logic of it all, logic sometimes is meant to be twisted. Really it is a gut feeling, what I’ve been seeing leading up to the fight, is one fighter in Rousey going full on Hollywood, distracted and overconfident trying to distract with an invisible round of psychological warfare which has worked on others, one in which Holm is not biting. To me that is half of the battle, I will give that round to Holly. Holly knows that Rousey is human, Holly has trained all her life for this moment, yes the odds are stacked high against her and she knows that, and that is why I believe in Holm and that is what makes her dangerous.
