Ronda Rousey fights like a statistical outlier
fivethirtyeight.com
fivethirtyeight.com
Anderson Silva, Matt Hughes, BJ Penn are all common names to MMA devotees (or at least were as recently as a few years ago) , and each of them share the same trait -- they win when they aren't supposed to.
I've never been remotely as good as any of them (nor Ronda Rousey), but eventually, when you defy the statistics for long enough, you become looked at as a modern-day Superman. Anderson Silva, for example, ran a hugely long undefeated streak in which he not only bested his opponents, but often embarrassed them before suddenly falling off the mark twice, and to the same opponent.
As a result, he has fallen from grace as the once "best pound for pound fighter in the world" to almost average, depending on who you're talking to. Regardless, his fight record[1] tells the story of a man who simply knows how to win, except against Chris Weidman, and as such, is worth fearing, despite being older than average and much, much better than average.
The point that I appear to be dancing around though, is that a guy on a 10-fight win streak seems invincible, while a guy on a 2-fight losing streak seems positively wimpy by comparison. Looking at the fighter's record on the whole is probably the best gauge of their talent, but as your statistical record approaches the mean, so does the level of fear you might otherwise instill, commensurately.
You can make the case that both age, and the sport evolves around them and they regressed towards the mean.
Except for Anderson. I attribute his decline simply to no longer being motivated to train hard. In many of his later fights, he would "play around" and toy with fighters. With Weidman, that cost him a brutal knockout. The psychological damage compounded with his next fight, which was immediate rematch that ended up in brutally shattering his leg.
For BJ Penn, there were a lot of questions about his motivations, and by time it seemed like he was properly motivated, the sport had passed him by. Despite all that, he is one of the few fighters that have belts in multiple weight classes, and beat Matt Hughes, and Gomi in their prime (you could argue he beat the piss out of GSP in their first match, despite it being a loss). Full Disclosure: BJ Penn is one of my favorite fighters of all time.
Quite possibly there are factors that I'm not privy to (like age inhibiting his flexibility or something), but I've never seen anybody as creative on the ground as he was (though there are some modern fighters that are getting there), and definitely not of his time, but yeah, for a long time, he rode the coattails of his raw talent and didn't train as competitively as many of those who ultimately passed him by.
Frank Mir is, in my opinion, his polar opposite (in too many ways to list).
As someone who has admiration for the "veterans" of the octagon, I'm really happy to see the resurgence of Andrei Arlovski.
That said, I would probably put Frank Mir right up there on adaptability, and Mir's last fight against Todd Duffee was simply amazing.
In BJ's case, being generally in poor shape much of the time, but mainly not focusing on his core talents and as you say, getting by on raw natural talent until that was no longer the case. The part that makes me so sad about BJ is, he was a once in a lifetime fighter, but there really aren't that many fights of his that are worth rewatching many times, really wish he would have stayed on top of his game for longer. I feel similarly about Nick Diaz - a good Diaz fight (ie vs: Lawler, Zaromskis, Santos) and a good BJ fight are just wonderful to watch.
In Frank's case, he just always gases early, often by the end of the first round. He's very talented but if you can't use that talent for much more than 3 rounds, you can't get too far.
As for his conditioning, it is generally very rare to see a full heavyweight with great conditioning. I can think of a handful, so it's not impossible, obviously, but carrying that much weight, and having to lug all that arm-weight around for each punch just seems arduous.
Nice reference to the Diaz/Lawler fight. That's literally one of my favorite fights of all time, and catapulted Diaz into a totally different tier from where I thought he was. Joe Rogan's announcing on that fight was also, ironically, perfect.
I love the Lawler fight, but to me the Zaromskis fight was Nick at his peak, and the Santos fight showed his mastery of striking and finishing on the ground.
Joe Rogan is always great, to me he is almost the perfect commentator, deep knowledge of the sports, loves it with a passion, picks up on the smallest things and communicates all this beautifully.
I'd say also mechanical stress causing his shin to snap like a twig
Start of his career: http://i.imgur.com/qg7cg2Z.png
A few years in: http://i.imgur.com/txcwmaw.jpg
He lost his drive very, very early on in his career.
Then again, when he was 15 years old, he was destroying adult pro boxers during sparring.
That's a joke, mostly, but having settled in to family life and programming, I did gain a lot of weight that I'm working off at the moment. As it stands, I'm still about 20-25 pounds overweight, but I haven't trained anything seriously since I had to take the family out of my last dojo due to ... uhh, personal concerns[1], a couple of years ago.
That said, I've been scouting out replacement dojos that do more than BJJ, which are harder to find, and have found a couple that are promising to get back to. My area of focus has historically been in Muay Thai, and I've just really never been all that great at BJJ, so while I enjoy training BJJ, it's nice to have a gym that does other things that I can go to to feel "good at something".
[1] - http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2013/12/3/5170294/team-lloyd-irvi...
The answer I came back with was 'No', thankfully. As she was only doing children's classes (obviously), I would gleefully watch her every practice and give her tips / practice with her afterward.
After that, we left the gym, but in addition to whatever other allegations against him, Lloyd Irvin takes his gym contracts very, very seriously, and I ended up owing them the remainder of the contract after they sued me (and won) which was only extra painful because we had just renewed the contract, so despite only having been a month or so in, they ended up getting a judgement in their favor somewhere in the $2800 range.
When a fighter wins with an unusually great use of a particular technique, the armbar, either a counter-method will become widespread, or if there isn't a good counter the armbar will become ubiquitous. Either way the champion fighter will regress towards the mean.
As you say, psychological dominance is a factor. And dare I say that the women's sport potentially is still in a younger stage of development. The first truly outstanding athlete to take up a somewhat niche sport, dominating over the lesser athletes currently present, is going to be hailed as one of the greats. Yet of course they risk reverting to the mean as the sport's profile rises and challengers appear.
This is what everyone is waiting for. Rhonda was effectively raised from childhood to be one of the greats in a mature women's UFC. So in this early era, nobody can touch her Martial arts on her level is something that hardly any women encounter as early on as she did, and most of her competitors are coming at a major late-start disadvantage to her.
What's particularly great is to see how she inspired young women and girls to start training intensely now instead of finding a love for the sport in their late teens and twenites.
The interesting thing about the Rousey's armbar is that everyone knows it's coming, and presumably, would look to defend against it above all else, and yet she still has an astonishing number of wins with it. A lot of that has to do with her being well-rounded elsewhere, and a lot of is has to do with the fact that she's really, really good at armbars.
Women's MMA is primarily disadvantaged by the dearth of women in college / high school wrestling, which means that most of them are starting later than the guys who graduated from greco roman wrestling and parlayed that into MMA. It's a big advantage, due almost entirely to discrimination, but one that will likely be obviated over time.
Ronda, on the other hand, grew up in an athletic household as the daughter of the first women's judo champion, and that mother routinely pushed her towards a similar path. She maybe didn't get a chance at college wrestling (or maybe she did, hell if I know), but she got the relevant training regardless, which puts her ahead of the rest of the pack.
Ronda's got a leg up, and it probably won't persist ad eterneum, but for now, and probably the immediate future, she's the best, and she's earned it. If she stops being the best, the question really is whether the talent vacuum rushes in around her, or gets occupied by the single person that beat her, and all that.
Sexual dimorphism is real and it wouldn't be entertaining to see her pounded into the ground by an amateur thaiboxer -- same as it isn't fun seeing both Serena and Venus Williams being effortlessly beaten by a thirty-something nobody male tennis player
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)
They claimed being able to beat anybody ranked 200 or lower in Men's tennis and lost to someone ranked 203rd.
The difference dimorphism makes is enormous.
In a complete contrast to Rhonda running her normal game against Gegard Mousasi, in a sparring back in 2012 -- as you say, not really entertaining, if perhaps instructive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9xjs2fWJEs
In brief, the sport was being banned and outlawed in various sates for being too dangerous, and in order to attain "legal" status, the UFC negotiated with gaming boards to determine rules. Some of those rules are stupid, some are undoubtedly prudent, but the rules largely exist because without them, the state of Nevada (and others) wouldn't have allowed the UFC to continue.
I don't have any special insight as to whether or not those gaming commissions mandate a separate women's class or not, and the UFC head honcho Dana White had previously stated that he'd never allow women's MMA in the UFC at all, but I suspect that his opinion has been changed by how competitive the women's division actually is.
Whether his change of opinion is sincere or profit motivated isn't any of my concern, but outside of Gina Carano, Cyborg and maybe three other ladies, the state of women's MMA at the time was pretty horrible, but just few years later and it's pretty great.
The UFC earns money from pay-per-view, and if nobody's watching, then nobody's paying, and they either put on a much cheaper production, diluting the brand, or they lose massive amounts of money.
There are plenty of women's sports, and even quite a few women's MMA leagues and productions, so it's not like there had been no opportunities. The UFC were the first ones to be able to sell unstaged women's fights to the general public, and they should be commended for it.
I think some people rolled their eyes a bit when females first entered the sport, but now a female fight on a card is 100% legitimate and they are as great to watch as any other.
I find it plausible that males have some advantage due to larger bones & muscles, but there's a long spectrum of skill between "decent" as you say, and what it takes to be a UFC champion. I don't think the extra muscle & bone mass will do much if you're unable to defend the elite level judo throws.
Beyond that, Rousey herself won the bronze medal in the 2008 Summer Olympics in judo.[2]
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnnMaria_De_Mars
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judo_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympi...
I've also sparred with amateur MMA women and none of them could even come close to winning against me. They simply don't have the strength. I could muscle out of any move they do. They don't have the punching power of a man and their striking ability does not instill fear.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ronda Rousey could beat me in a fight. She is strong for a woman and she is in great shape. Fitness is a skill in a fight. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that she could not even defeat a low level pro male fighter. She would have not a single advantage and all of the disadvantages.
Such is my opinion based on anecdotal experience.
The point of commenting on muscle strength is that if one is strong enough to muscle out of a person's move then they don't have to be as talented to defend against said moves. Hence the belief that many people have that Ronda would not stand a chance against even a low level pro male fighter.
You're also underestimating the strength difference between women and men. Pound for pound, an untrained man will be about 50% stronger than an untrained woman. With both trained, the difference approaches 100%.
http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLifting/StrengthStandards....
Edit: Whenever I hear comments about women beating men in physical sports, I think about the Williams sisters both losing to the 203th ranked male tennis player, who supposedly didn't try very hard, and according to some reports spent the morning before drinking and playing golf, and smoked between sets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)#1...
http://www.yourememberthat.com/media/15978/Karsten_Braasch_v...
I seriously doubt that the 203rd ranked male had better technical skills than the Williams sisters. Skill only gets you so far, though.
In my experience if someone has done a move on you and has it tight then it is very hard to get out of. However, before the hold is tight then muscling out of it is very much a huge concern for a lighter, weaker fighter. A smaller person usually is quicker and more scrappy. Speed is an asset but there is a reason there are weight classes. Larger opponents are much harder to defeat if both people are in equally good shape and have around the same skill set.
The stronger you are, the more tiny mistakes you can make before you end up in a position where they can't get out.
Perhaps more devastating is that you need less leverage to put them in a compromising position. It can be the difference of grabbing them in a slightly sub-optimal position, then muscling them into the optimal position. where if you were of comparable strength your sub-optimal grab might not be advantageous at all.
Allow me to put this in terms you may better understand. The secret lies in the Y chromosome. This small chromosome contains the instructions for making males. The way the bones and joints are positioned give males equal in weight to a women a distinct strength advantage. Take this into account along with the male hormonal profile which is vastly different.
The most powerful thing is the male hormonal profile. Testosterone allows you to hold more muscle and less fat. It gives men that burst of strength and horizontal punching power that puts them in an entirely different league. I'm sure you are thinking of outliers, but I'm talking about a well developed athletic male, not a couch potato.
Now you see some men that seem more or less masculine and the same goes for women. Rowdy is for sure a more masculine women. I'm sure this is genetic as well as from her training. Her hormonal profile and bone structure is more masculine although in comparison to a male fighter not so much.
I will probably start an argument, but a great deal of strength is unnecessary if you are trying to damage your opponent with strikes. When I say "damage" I mean "cause injury". You want to deform your target so that it breaks. To do so, you need speed, not strength.
Consider, for a moment, a glacier. Because it is ridiculously massive, it has a huge amount of momentum as it creeps along at 5 cm per year. A glacier can level mountains, but anyone can stand next it it and let it "hit" them with no damage. That's because it is moving very slowly and your body has plenty of time to adjust itself to any deformation the glacier will cause.
Now consider a bullet. It has not even a fraction of the momentum of the glacier, but it can drill holes in you. That's because it is moving very quickly. When it hits you, your body deforms and there is not enough time for it to adjust before it has deformed to the breaking point.
Another good analogy is Jello. Put some Jello on a plate. If you are careful, you can push the Jello around. It deforms when you push on it, but then rebounds and moves backwards, bouncing back to its original shape. If you push too quickly, though, there will not be enough time for it to rebound and you will create a hole.
Striking in fighting works the same way. There is not enough space in a comment to explain how to use this idea to strike optimally, but most people with good technique can seriously damage any human opponent. Certainly any adult (whether male or female) that has trained for 10 years or so will be "strong enough".
Strength is important in grappling and positioning an opponent. It is also important when you are wearing pads designed to deaden the impact of a strike. If the pads deform instead of the body, then if you want to knock someone out (for instance) you need to be very strong to physically move their brain case around. Similarly, strength is important to push their muscles around to tire them.
Part of the problem is that in sport we are hoping to have a competition in which people compete but don't unduly injure each other. In such a situation, strength will certainly play a big role and so women are at a disadvantage. If we were intending to see how fast we can injure our opponent (very possibly killing them in the process), then I think it levels the playing field considerably.
Jiu-jitsu is designed to constrain striking attacks so as to make them less dangerous, so possibly it wouldn't make any difference anyway -- a very skilled striker may not get many opportunities before they are taken down. However, I think we will never really know because I don't think there is any way to be really effective in striking without intending to kill your opponent. IMHO it is not a technique that lends itself well to sports (it is worth noting that the head of my style disagrees on this point!) I have also never seen an MMA fighter that strikes well (fast enough, choosing the correct targets, relaxed enough, etc). I don't think I ever will because such a fighter would injure too many people to get fights.
Source: co-ed thai boxing classes.
- knee (easy to hit, easy to break)
- shin (if the person is standing on that leg it's easy to break)
- ribs, breast bone, collar bone (big huge target that is hard to move out of the way. Ribs are easy to break. A collar bone break will effectively stop an opponent from using their arms, though it is hard to hit)
- neck (hard to hit but if you miss you've got collar bone and jaw as backup. Some fighters handily give you their jaw to protect their neck. If you hit the neck with a clean shot, there will be no fight...)
- head (hard to hit, but you can break it in two with a clean shot... seriously).
You will notice that all of my targets of choice other than neck are bones. Soft tissues are not a good choice for a striker because they absorb damage too easily. Also, they don't incapacitate the opponent immediately. Often the person can go for a good 10 seconds before they even realize that they are damaged.
Furthermore groin and eyes are very hard to hit. The groin is easy to protect and the eyes are just too small. You could hit them against an untrained fighter, but you can do just about anything against an untrained fighter.
You will also notice that apart from the head and ribs, none of these are targets that are used often in sports matches. It's obvious why. If a sports fighter walks out, notices that his opponent's leading leg is too straight and breaks the knee on purpose... well that person isn't going to get invited back to most tournaments.
Also most sports fighters put too much power into their strikes. If you actuate your muscles all through the strike, it slows it down. Rather than thinking about powering through an opponent, they would do better to think of their limbs as whips. You accelerate quickly, using every joint as a way to multiply the speed. When you hit, you then need to align your bones so that the rebound force is directed along the longitudinal axis of the bones. Each bone must be aligned in an arch leading to the ground so that you take the brunt of the force through your skeleton not through your muscles.
It takes a long time to master this technique (and I have not done so ;-) ). One of my instructors could break the ribs of his opponents with kicks even though we wore padded fibreglass armour. We also wore plexiglass helmets. The people who first started using these (one generation before me) sometimes broke them into pieces while sparring so a rule was implemented to tell people to be careful when hitting the head ;-)
Like I said, I don't really know how far you would get against a well trained ground fighter who is good at avoiding getting hit badly. I think the odds are in favour of the ground fighter winning the fight if they don't make any mistakes, but it would be very dangerous against a good striker.
I'm sure there are lots of people who think the above is complete poppycock ;-) In fact, it is testament to HN etiquette than someone hasn't said so up to this point. For me these days it is occasionally fun to think about this stuff, but I have been "retired" from karate for nearly a decade now. Hope someone will find it interesting even if they don't agree ;-)
Here is one example: Lucia Rijker vs Somchai Jaideea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsaTPtUl4vs
Wiki's description of this fight:
An exhibition match involving a man verses a woman was sanctioned between Lucia Rijker who was then undefeated and Somchai Jaidee who considered a journeyman amongst his division, they both were almost identical in weight apart from the arbitrary weight discrepancy of 1 pound, during the opening minutes of the first bout Rijker proceeded to stand virtually toe-to-toe with Somchai whos strength advantage was already apparent, however Lucy shows impressive speed, Lucy then makes several attempts to kick Somchai to which Lucy bounces of him and loses her balance on multiple occasions due to the lopsided physical superiority of Somchai, Lucy however did not make it to the end of the fight when she attempted to brawl the stronger male Somchai and was knocked completely unconscious, many believed that it served as an example of why a women should not be sanctioned to fight a man(hungdaddy patriarchy), the match was since then dubbed the "cook the man some eggshibition".
I wonder what kind of pressure is being applied to Rousey by her manager, agent and fight organizers?
All this Ronda-centered marketing stuff (like this whole thread, actually) seems to do her well, but otherwise it's just not interesting to watch a fight that lasts for 15 seconds and ends with submission by the armbar. Every time.
Three of her last four fights were KO or TKO. She can win with more than just the armbar.
That said, I think you're underestimating the amount of people that tune in on the potential to see her lose. Rousey's skill attracts a lot of fans, but her attitude and status have definitely attracted plenty who would love to watch her get beat, as well.
http://mmajunkie.com/2015/08/ufc-190-post-fight-facts-ronda-...
First of all, that's false. Top male fighters, in an actual match, would injure her. It would not be entertaining, it would be almost disgustingly brutal. One need look no further than what Cristiane Justino - using performance enhancing drugs - did to her opponents, to understand. Pound for pound, top male fighters are going to be between 50% and 100% stronger than Ronda.
I'm curious when this fantasy is going to stop being promoted? It seems to commonly be in every thread about her, across every site.
Even more interesting, is to analyze the origins of it, why it exists, and why people feel the need to keep it going. I can't decide if it's mostly fetish (a male fantasy of being dominated physically), or something else entirely.
She does not routinely win against top male fighters.
And if you watch the YouTube videos of what you're talking about, her training sessions against men, they are not going full-steam against her, and they almost always have very sizable weight advantages - which is rule #1 of what you never do in fighting (and why Ronda hasn't yet fought Cyborg). In the case of Ronda vs Cyborg, you're talking a few pounds of difference, and she refuses to fight due to that gap - so you're trying to tell me she's having no problem against guys 30 and 40 pounds heavier in training (fails the logic test right off).
Pound for pound she does not win regardless.
If shes smart and wants a massive payday she will cut to 135 for the Rousey fight.
A catchweight fight could be reasonably expected in this situation, but coming down an entire division is very, very uncommon. The weird thing is that MMA doesn't seem to have a division in between theirs. For example in boxing you have lightweight which is 135, then you have super lightweight at 140, and then welterweight at 147. But Ronda fights at 135, and Cyborg fights at 145, there's no 140 in between. A catchweight fight at 140 makes a lot of sense, I think, coming down 10 pounds is crazy. Going up 10 pounds is also a lot, although we mustn't forget Ronda competed in the olympics (a much tougher competition in the sport she dedicated a much bigger part of her life to) at 154 pounds, so this notion 145 is suddenly too much, and that Cyborg just has to come down to 135 is pretty silly but whatever. It's not uncommon to compete at a lower weight than the olympics, but 20 pounds is a gigantic difference and it says she could easily go 10 pounds back up. And for a catchweight bout it'd only have to be 5. If that doesn't happen I think it's clear who doesn't want to take the fight. (Ronda)
Beyond that I don't know if Cyborg's on steroids, I don't follow her much and I wouldn't be surprised if she was, but I don't see her weight as being remotely related. Again, it's extremely untypical to go down in weight classes, if that was supposedly indicative of steroids I can literally name a hundred fighters who'd be suspicious from the top of my head.
Anyway yeah she said it a couple times that she could do 135, yet it hasn't happened because she wants the fight at 140 at a catchweight I suggested (I'm just reading this now). I mean Cyborg just a few years ago won gold medals at at 74kg or 163 pounds. Now she has to drop down to 135 pounds from there, or 10 pounds from her 145 fights this year? Instead of Ronda agreeing to go up 5 pounds to 140, when Ronda competed just fine in tougher competitions at 154 before? So supposedly she's got the self confidence to fight anyone, to beat men, to even beat elite female boxers like Laila Ali IN BOXING, when Laila competed up to 175 (I mean it's just a total joke), yet Ronda doesn't want to go up 5 pounds for Cyborg to go down 5 pounds and make the fight happen?
http://www.sbnation.com/2015/8/2/9086623/ronda-rousey-challe...
It's not a bias, it's extremely well understood human physiology. Men and women are in fact very different in the strength department, men are vastly stronger.
This is not about the aggregate, it's about the specific.
I would put Rhonda's ground game up against plenty of bantamweight men. Striking is a different story, of course, but god help any fighter that hesitates and lets her attach on to anything. Watch her spar with Uriah Hall, and how easily she takes down an extremely athletic man with a 50 pound advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yYZfeDm_Ig
I don't think this fight would ever happen, but dismissing Rhonda Rouseys potential with biological hand-waving is an insult to everything she's accomplished. And I'm saying this as someone who doesn't even particularly like her.
A strong male athlete can bench press 150%-175%+ his body weight. You think Rousey can do 6 x 240 pounds? Not a chance.
Of course, world records might not be the best thing to look at, since the variance among the genders is probably different (although this discussion is about top MMA fighters, so it's fairly appropriate). Also, you can probably find very different numbers by looking at different weight classes and events.
As an example, I'm 175# and can bench press 285# (3 whites) but I'm not a "strong male athlete" by any means.
Athletes who train for strength (linemen, powerlifters like GZCL) are putting up 2x their body weight or more, and that's just for bench press alone which is usually the lightest event.
Deadlifts and squats can hit 4x body weight which is just insane.
Very commonly referenced strength standards in lifting communities for most people between absolute novice and absolute world class.
It's not an insult, it's just biology.
That said, the comparison is made, simply because there aren't any Women to compare Rousey too. In our need to classify how good Ronda Rousey is, we want to now compare her globally.
Ronda has said herself she does not want to fight men. I concur with her, it's bad for the sport, and she has nothing to gain from it.
It's disappointing that we'll probably never see Ronda realize her full potential because she doesn't face enough competitive pressure.
There's been plenty of discussion about this on Sherdog and /r/mma... and even some historical precedent. I recall seeing a video awhile back of a then female undefeated kickboxing champion vs a journeyman fighter and while the female fighter showed more speed and skill, the physical advantage made the fight extremely lopsided.
It won't be decisive. It would amount to an assassination. I'll let you figure out who would kill who.
That most of her wins are obvious, and still unpreventable is what makes her scary, and there are indeed plenty of guys she could beat in the octagon.
On the whole, I definitely agree that many of those guys are probably paying her lip service, and that the level of challenge goes up incredibly when facing guys, especially those above Featherweight, but to be fair to her, I actually like her chances against much of the field in fly and bantamweights, minus those at the very top, perhaps.
> men have a biological advantage
I'm curious what biological advantage going through puberty as a male imparts that going through HRT doesn't take away.
http://fightmedicine.net/uncategorized/a-medical-and-scienti...
>The effects of hormonal therapy over time, in this case testosterone deprivation and estrogen supplementation, are not completely understood. However, what is clear is that transgender individuals that underwent surgery after puberty will retain some male features, such as increased height. Male–>Female transgender patients tend to retain more muscle mass than female–>male transgender patients gain, suggesting that some gender-specific attributes remain. Whether effects such as height will prove beneficial in MMA like they do in other sports such as basketball remains to be seen. Another question is if the fighter is completely transgendered. Taking estrogens without castration will leak out testosterone that can maintain muscle mass. Furthermore, how much estrogen is being taken? If it’s not enough, then muscle strength can be closer to male levels
But this is something that can be measured and has less to do with the fact that the HRT happened after puberty.
In the male league, do some fighters get to refuse to fight others based on bone density differences? I'm thinking not, which is why this restriction seems artificial, sort of like grasping for straws to find a difference (though I'm open to being proven wrong).
That does not discount that there are men currently competing in MMA that Rousey has a realistic and good shot at actually beating.
The average man has weight and musculature advantages over Ronda in the same way that Ken Shamrock, Grizzly Pardoel and Patrick Smith have weight and musculature advantages over Royce Gracie. Despite that, Royce has beaten them all.
Matt Hughes was one of the best in the world, and much more in his prime than Gracie for that fight, and also a student of BJJ.
Yes, men have a distinct and pronounced advantage against any woman, but I flatly reject the notion that any amateur MMA practitioner could best her in the ring, especially given the breadth of talent in MMA. Watch any UFC prelim, and I guarantee that you'd find at least a couple of guys who you'd certainly bet money to lose against Ronda. Beyond that, there are top guys that don't have a good defense against BJJ, and they're often matched up against like competitors for showmanship, and if you think there's no way she could sink an armbar on any of them, I just flat out think you're wrong.
There are NO guys (professional MMA fighers) that she could beat in the Octagon. Respectfully, this is a fantasy.
First of all, that's false.
Gender stereotypes and attitudes being what they are, he can either look bad for beating up a girl or look bad for getting beat up by a girl. There is no good outcome.
Pound for pound, top male fighters are going to be between 50% and 100% stronger than Ronda.
Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with.
I can't believe this is even an issue of debate or misunderstanding on HN.
Go to any gym and watch a 5'6", 165 pound guy bench press, and then watch a woman at the same size with the same experience do so. Men can also jump higher and run faster than women at exactly the same physical measurements.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683
"Strength and muscle characteristics were examined in biceps brachii and vastus lateralis of eight men and eight women. Measurements included motor unit number, size and activation and voluntary strength of the elbow flexors and knee extensors. Fiber areas and type were determined from needle biopsies and muscle areas by computerized tomographical scanning. The women were approximately 52% and 66% as strong as the men in the upper and lower body respectively. The men were also stronger relative to lean body mass."
http://www.quora.com/Are-men-generally-physically-stronger-t...
This is indisputable.
However, strength only in one factor, and there are many that contribute to the success in an MMA fight.
There are also key differences in how you measure strength and how that matters in a fight.
Daniel Cormier has significantly higher stats around olympic lifts, and routinely manhandles his opponents. Against former champion Jon Jones, however, Jones matched him, and was able to out wrestle the former olympian.
Saying it more plainly, just because men are naturally stronger than women, doesn't mean that men are naturally better fighters.
No, a 180 pound man would absolutely destroy a 180 woman. It's just the way it is. To a large extent it's because the only weight in your body that's doing 'work' are your muscles, and women biologically have higher body fat percentages than men, including in top trained athletes in weight-division based sports. That difference can be quite substantial depending on the sport and the level. For normal people the average difference is about 11% (and you wouldn't see it, either, a man at 12% bodyfat looks very similar to a woman at say 18 or 20%) Meaning for a say a 180 pound individual at a 10% differential in bodyfat percentage, we're looking at a difference of 18 pounds of muscle. That's multiple weight divisions, a huge difference in division based sports like most martial arts. In other words you can have more muscle while being the same weight. A lot of this has to do with different steroid hormonal levels, like testosterone, and genetics, which dictate the ability and propensity to build muscle and store fat, which differ quite significantly between sexes.
Beyond that there are differences in hand-eye coordination between men and women, which I don't know exist for top athletes (although looking at women in sports like football or boxing that I know pretty well, it's often considerably worse with all due respect, so I'd assume technically there is a difference, too in general, although there are exceptions), and then there's aerobic fitness related things where men have better oxygen uptake, bodyweight adjusted, too, more hemoglobin mass etc.
But yeah outside of sports, a lot of it is weight based. You simply won't find guys the size of Valuev or Anthony Joshua in the opposite gender.
Anyway the whole 'beat a man' thing with Ronda is just marketing. The fact we're talking about this is exactly what it gets her: a ton of exposure even on platforms totally non-fighting related. Everyone within their own sport knows how big the gap is. She's sparred with tons of guys and has experienced getting toyed with. And that is true for many other sports. Some women have tried in various sports, tennis being the most common one, where you ended up with the nr 1 woman in the world not being able to win a single set against her brother who plays for recreation at college level. In fighting we've had Dutch pride Lucia Rijker, one of the greatest female fighters of all time, undefeated, actually trains Ronda in her striking, and she got knocked out unconscious by a complete and utter nobody easily and quickly, she never tried again.
What do you think if we train men and women from the moment they born together ? Is there any scientific evidence that can prove women are absolutely weaker in terms of physical strength ?
I mean by looking at the information you provided like differences in body fat percentage , I am not convinced this is absolute differences.I don't know how to put it , let me say it , what is the reason to such huge gap for example in body fat differences percentage ?
What if we didn't have separate championship league for every sport between men and women ? I think some kind of "law of survival" would help women's to increase their power in long term.
p.s. by the way I am just CS student and I don't have any information about these kind of topic . but I think centuries of suppressing woman make them weaker in some area's , which I think would be fixed by just society which do not differentiate between men and women.
There are various other videos of her rolling with other men (albeit bigger ones) like Mousasi and Luke Rockhold, and it is anything but competitive.
I think the situation is pretty comparable to Serena Williams, who would win against most "regular" men, but not be able to provide a competitive match against roger federer.
Well what is regular? A regular professional would completely dominate her. Here's an anecdote of the only time she tried against a man.
> During the 1998 Australian Open, sisters Serena and Venus Williams boasted that they could beat any man ranked outside the world's top 200. The challenge was accepted by Karsten Braasch, a German player ranked No 203 (his highest ranking was No 38). Before the matches, Braasch played a round of golf in the morning, drank a couple of beers, smoked a few cigarettes, and then played the Williams sisters for a set each, one after the other. He defeated Serena, 6-1, and Venus, 6-2. Serena said afterwards "I didn't know it would be that hard. I hit shots that would have been winners on the women's tour and he got to them easily."
We're talking about two women here who ended up nr 1 players in the world (in fact Serena is the nr 1 right now, today), and were already top 10 players at that time.
Of course if you mean by 'regular' to be just anyone, like me... then sure, but if you pick the average person from the street they'd lose to a 12 year old talent, let alone someone like Williams.
As for Ronda, it's pretty well known men hold back when they spar her in all these videos for sure. She could absolutely trash us, but a professional male fighter wouldn't have a hard time at all, and he doesn't have to be world class. It's just the way it is and there's no shame in that. Just like there's no shame in a 10 year old losing to an adult, or a fully able-bodied beating a physically handicapped person, or a 15 year old beating the old and frail Mohammed Ali he is today, so what, there's a grand biological/physical difference there that has no basis in merit or talent or will and that is unsurmountable, nothing to be proud over for the winner and nothing to be ashamed over for the loser.
She won't face Cyborg due to a difference of ten pounds. That tells you everything you need to know. A top-ranked male fighter in her weight class is going to have an even greater physical advantage than what those 10 pounds give Cyborg.
The Cyborg thing: Ronda is the champion, Cyborg should come down to her weight, not the other way around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)
Man ranked 203 beats both Williams sisters in informal sets:
It's in fact so unpopular that you can get papers claiming the opposite published despite very simple math errors in them, like this one: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/276/1659/1161
while arguing for opposite gets you shunned even if all you need to prove your point is high school level math and a rating list with attendance rates.
In MMA it's not even interesting as men are way stronger, have better hand-eye coordination and way less body fat. I doubt she would have a chance again a local amateur small town champion let alone anyone competitive.
It's definitely less disadvantage in chess than it is in MMA but it seems the effect is still there.
Humans are cultural creatures, cultural thinkers and movers, and in everything from chess to MMA we benefit greatly from growing up in a culture that is tooled to support our specific strengths. Not everyone gets that chance, and not all groups equally.
Well, we don't but attendance rate are already taken into account. There might be other cultural problems though like being in a minority being difficult or more likely girls just doing worse in competitive social environments which are typical for sports.
One can even argue that girls already have advantage in selection: assuming equal talent distribution in boys and girls populations and assuming most talented children from both make it to the competitive chess, the girls should do better (because less of them are selected and therefore more talented ones on average).
If anything it's likely that once selected (that is starting to play competitively) the environment is less welcoming to girls. On the other hand girls get more opportunities than boys (dues to women only tournaments, titles, world championship).
While I think the hypothesis that environment is less welcoming and thus inhibit development of women players I have trouble seeing how this can be tested.
Aptitude testing shows[1] that while females tend to cluster more towards the average, male populations produce more outliers. There are both more male geniuses and male imbeciles than their female counterparts.
[1] for example http://www.aei.org/publication/chart-of-the-day-scottish-iq-...
This is the product of the different evolutionary strategy for males and females, the males being high risk/high reward, the females being conservative/average. I don't have a citation for that.
If they would be boxing — Ronda would stay no chance.
But then it's quite natural, you know. In the chess match between Kasparov and Mayweather, Kasparov would win as well. I guess.
So, again, this argument is worth nothing and whole point is simply about marketing. As well as that "women are not supposed to be able to do" thing. I'm quite sure there are plenty of women which would take me in a fistfight, because, well, they train for that way more than I do. But if you are comparing men against women in the same sport… well, it's already discussed.
Actually, I just think its plain sexist.
As has been mentioned all over this thread, sexual dimorphism is a real thing, and not just something men made up to repress the lowly women.
A strong, fierce, dominant fighter can absolutely be female. A strong, fierce, dominant fighter that is female and that could beat someone larger is exceedingly unlikely, and has absolutely nothing to do with sexism whatsoever.
The plots in the post make no distinction between male and female MMA fighters. I'm not seeing the "gender studies" aspect that you refer to, and that bit of negativity is a little sour.