Ronda Rousey's Coach Doesn't Think Holly Holm Out-Struck Her

Fallout from UFC 193 continues. In the middle of an ESPN story about Holly Holm’s upset of Ronda Rousey, ESPN’s Brett Okamato casually offered up this gem from Rousey’s coach, Edmond Tarverdyan. It is truly a head-scratcher. Via ESPN:

"“I wouldn’t say in the striking game she was getting the best of Ronda, you know, but I have to watch it again. But we know this was not a striking match; we know that Ronda is smart enough to take the fight where she is best at and today she did. Holly stopped an attempt on an armbar and stopped some of the takedowns. She did a good job.”"

There is really only one way to interpret this statement – pure delusion. Fittingly, that’s also an accurate description of what Tarverdyan said after the first round at UFC 193 when he told Rousey she was doing “beautiful work,” despite the champ pretty clearly losing the round.

FightMetric shows Holm clearly dominating and Rousey’s face matched the numbers. Holm landed 27 of 40 strikes in the first and 38 of 53 overall. Rousey landed just 21 of 67 strikes and failed on her single take down attempt. According to the stats, Rousey clearly lost the striking battle, but obviously, stats don’t tell the whole story in mixed martial arts. There’s also the eye-test which says Rousey got freaking destroyed.

So either Tarverdyan is delusional, trying to save his job by convincing everyone this wasn’t that bad, or Rousey’s mother was right all along. However you want to look at it, the general consensus seems to be that if Rousey wants to get that belt back, she needs a different coach.