Ronda Rousey, Liz Carmouche, UFC 157The UFC 157 main event will be history in the making when UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey takes on Liz Carmouche in the first ever women’s MMA match in the UFC. The fight has been well publicized and it’ll be interesting to see the response on Saturday night. We’ve seen women create an electricity in the air just the men when it comes to big women MMA fights. However, will that electricity be amplified on Saturday night? Let’s get to the breakdown.

Liz Carmouche (8-2) comes into this fight off her second round submission victory over Kaitlin Young in July 2012. Carmouche has won five bouts via TKO/KO and two via submission. Carmouche fought for the Strikeforce women’s bantamweight title against Marloes Coenen. Carmouche took the fight on short notice and gave the then champion all she could handle and then some before succumbing to a triangle choke submission.  That’s the fight that put Carmouche on the map as a young female fighter.

Ronda Rousey (6-0) comes into this fight off her first round submission win over Sarah Kaufman in August 2012. Rousey has won all six of her bout via armbar submission in the very first round. She’s an Olympic Judo medalist and apparently has perfected the armbar as none of her opponents can stop it even when they know it’s coming.

Rousey is the heavy betting favorite going into this fight with Carmouche being an astronomical underdog. Rousey has simply torn through the competition and is expected to do the same with Carmouche.

It’s simple for Carmouche. She HAS to keep the fight standing and force Rousey to use her striking. I’m sure Rousey has been working on her striking in anticipation of not being able to take an opponent down at some point. It’ll be interesting to see if we’ll get to see glimpses of that part of her game. Then again, she could just go directly after the takedown and shoot for the armbar like she has in every other fight for the most part.

It would be a huge upset if Carmouche were to pull off the win. She’ll need to display excellent discipline in gauging her distance and not allowing Rousey to get into clinch positions. That’ll be very hard to do since Carmouche has a tendency to close the distance and take opponents down to beat them up. That’s not a good recipe for success against Rousey.

Rousey should win this one fairly easily. I guess I’ll go with the tried and true method again. Rousey via armbar in the first. Hey, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

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