Shut up about Ronda Rousey and Floyd Mayweather already

@MichaelCoughlin

 

Meisha Tate agrees: Ronda Rousey would armbar Floyd Mayweather Jr.  This is news, see, because Boobs McGee and Ronda are “GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!! ENEMIES!”  And so if Ronda’s anti-BFF (her Sting?) thinks she’d beat up Floyd then it must be true.

 

Just.  Stop.

 

Honda Housey is a smart woman who is a legitimate badass who can beat up every woman on earth that’s near her size.  How is that not enough?  That’s a pretty cool accomplishment.  I can’t do that. (Male or female)(and I’ve tried)(wait…)  She’s popular and “writes books” and does movies and headlines PPVs and seems nice enough.

 

 

Floyd is a dickhead who beats up women.  Often.  And gets away with it because he’s rich.  He couldn’t be more of a villain if he tried – and he actually is more of one when he doesn’t try because then you realize he’s sincerely an asshole.

 

This is all just an off-shoot of the same argument, debate, talking points – whatever you want to call it – that’s been a part of the MMA community for years: MMArtists can beat up boxers.  Yes.  They can.  With ease.  I’ve made this argument before – and it wasn’t new or revolutionary then either (and I shouldn’t have written it because it was useless then too).  We all know this.  Stop being so insecure in your sport.

 

It’s 2015, this isn’t news.  Could Ronda beat up Mayweather in an “anything goes” fight?  I’d put my money on her for sure, no doubt.  So?  She’s a grappler.  She’s a world-class grappler.  She’s a world-class grappler who is specifically world-class at taking people down from the clinch.  He punches.  That’s all he does.  He doesn’t kick.  He doesn’t knee.  He’s a master at a very specific area of fighting.

 

Pure grappler beats pure striker was figured out in 1993.

 

 

Boys have boy parts and girls have girl parts

 

This also plays to people who want to think it’s a referendum on women and athletics and all that.  No, it’s not.  She knows how to do things that he doesn’t, that’s all this is.  If she faced a high level male Judoka, you know what would happen?  He’d murder her face off in Judo.  In MMA?  Someone like Tate’s man-candy, Bryan Caraway, a guy who is a solid but unremarkable 135lber, would absolutely kill Rousey.  BECAUSE HE IS A MAN AND MEN ARE BIGGER AND STRONGER AND FASTER.

 

This isn’t a bad thing.  It doesn’t mean women are inferior.  Different is not inferior.  Women and men don’t compete against each other in the same sports for a reason: because it wouldn’t be entertaining.  Serena Williams.  Super dominant female tennis goddess, years ago, played tennis against a guy who was like #200 in the world.  He smoked her.  Not just smoked her but he was playing golf earlier in the day, drinking, smoking, etc…

 

AND THIS IS OK!

 

I like women and men.  It’s cool that everyone isn’t the same.  Williams could kick my ass in tennis.  And I’d beat her in … I dunno, writing or something.  Dogs can bark better than cats can and cats can meow better than dogs can.  The only difference is that dogs and cats don’t spend all day wondering if the other one is a lesser animal because it was born with different parts.

 

I also love MMA.  It’s awesome.  I love BJJ and Judo and wrestling and kickboxing and even boxing.  They’re all fun.  Just enjoy them for what they are.  Ronda would tap out Floyd.  So?  In a boxing match, he could probably beat her by never throwing a punch.  He’d just slip her haymakers and she’d fall face first into a turnbuckle or something.

 

Styles make fights

 

 

That is Lucia Rijker.  She’s probably – definitely – the greatest female striker of all time.  She’s never lost in boxing or kickboxing and has done a lot of both.  She fought her career at 140 lbs.

 

 

That is Paulo Miyao.  He is arguably the greatest pure grappler on earth at 140 lbs.  He wins everything, reinvents BJJ in a way that annoys people, and is awesome and fun.

 

And if they faced each other in a kickboxing match, Rijker would murder him so dead that he never would have ever been born.  If women’s striking was at the level MMA currently is at, and men’s BJJ was at the level of boxing, would we all be talking about this as some proof that women – or strikers or whatever – are superior to men?  Or would we acknowledge the reality: one is an expert at one thing; the other is an expert at another thing.  Those things are both versions of fighting but that’s it.

 

(As an aside: Rijker once fought a man in a kickboxing match. He KOd her with ease.)(Thailand: it’s not just for dick pills.)

 

Don’t Worry; Be Happy

 

MMA is here, fellow MMA fans.  It is a sport that can have back-to-back pay per views, within a 30 day window, and both do almost a million buys.  And that such a thing happens is almost not even news.  It’s on TV more than anything except the World Series of Poker.  People make millions doing it.  Sports Illustrated.  All that crap.  It isn’t 1999.  The sport isn’t hanging by a thread, ready to die at any time, and being kept alive by dedicated people staging borderline illegal fights in barns in the middle of Iowa.

 

It’s ok to like MMA and boxing.  It’s ok to accept the limitations of each sport’s athletes in certain circumstances.  It’s ok to know that men and women are different.

 

If you want to talk about Ronda and Floyd, how about this: maybe each of them can find someone in their own sport that is a challenge and we watch that instead.