A Strikeforce women’s bantamweight (135 lbs.) title fight between champion Miesha Tate (12-2) and 2008 Olympic judo medalist and Fight Tribe Management Client, Ronda Rousey (4-0) has been confirmed for March 3 in Columbus, Ohio.
News of the bout first began circulating late last week, however, Strikeforce made the official announcement during the live broadcast of “Rockhold vs. Jardine” Friday night on Showtime.
There are those who do not feel Rousey “deserves” or has “earned” the title shot, but those are the same kind of arguments that were used against Brock Lesnar when he first joined the UFC and he ended up becoming the UFC heavyweight champion and tied the record for most heavyweight title defenses.
Much like Lesnar herself, except even more so, Rousey comes from such a high level combat sports background, the normal rules of procedure do not apply. Lesnar got a shot at the UFC heavyweight title after only one win inside the Octagon (and one loss), and only two wins total as an MMA fighter.
Yes, Lesnar was an anomaly, but so is Ronda Rousey.
Rousey has had two wins in Strikeforce, both by armbar, and both in under a minute. She submitted Sarah D’Alelio (4-2) in 25 seconds in August, then returned in November to submit Julia Budd (2-2) in 39 seconds.
Now read this…
Prior to signing with Strikeforce, Ms. Rousey had a total of five MMA bouts; two were pro and the other three were amateur. Guess what happened… Rousey won them all by armbar in under a minute. — So just in case you missed it, Ronda Rousey has fought a total of seven times as a mixed martial artist and she has won every bout via armbar submission in less than a minute. Total fight time over Ms. Rousey’s seven fight MMA career: 4 minutes .3 seconds.
Tate is on a six-fight win streak. Her last loss was a decision loss to Sarah Kaufman in 2009. Since then she has racked up wins over the likes of Valerie Coolbaugh, Zoila Gurgel, Hitomi Akano, and most recently, Marloes Coenen via fourth round arm triangle choke, to earn the Strikeforce 135 pound title in July 2011.
Also expected to take place on Strikeforce’s March 3 card is a women’s bantamweight match-up between former champion Sarah Kaufman and Alexis Davis, the winner of which may get the next title shot against the winner of Tate-Rousey.
A lightweight bout between K.J. Noons and Josh Thomson and a welterweight bout between Paul Daley and Kazuo Misaki are also scheduled for the March 3 fight card.
