Ronda Rousey is clearly the best fighter in her division, having finished all ten of her opponents with not much resistance. She has an average fight time of about 2 and a half minutes, and has been a truly dominant force at bantamweight. No one can argue with Rousey's accomplishments in the Octagon, but how does she stack up against the achievements of the male fighters?
The question was asked to Edmond Tarverdyan, and while he didn't exactly have an unbiased point of view, he says Rousey belongs near the top of the heap pound-for-pound. He spoke to Ariel Helwani at the MMA Hour about it:
"Top three, for sure. Ronda finishes every fight. She's amazing with the skills and the hard work and what she shows in the Octagon. 16 seconds, she showed everything. Good punch, good knee, good takedown, ground and pound. This girl did everything in 16 seconds, so she is in the top three."
"The way she performed against Sara McMann also, silver medalist, and the way she controlled her on the cage. Put those combinations together, mixed it up with elbows, everything, and dropped her. It's great."
"What I see with her, yes, the fights finish early, but she's the best in the world. She's should be in the top three."Related:
Pound-for-Pound rankings are usually all over the place, with various meanings and criteria differing from person to person, but do you agree with Taverdyan's take stating that Rousey should be ranked higher than most of the other male UFC champions?
BloodyElbow.com's Kyle McLachlan recently gave his own take on the pound-for-pound debate using interesting formulas to rank each fighter's dominance, and he had Rousey as high as #5 on the list. According to the collective media panel at UFC.com on the other hand, Rousey belongs at #9.