Dana White Says Ronda Rousey Wants Bethe Correia Fight, But ‘Pitbull’ Must Join The Line

UFC 177 went down in Sacramento, California last night (Sat. August 30, 2014) in what turned out to be a surprisingly decent event. It turned out that former bantamweight champion Renan Barao’s withdrawal from the event wasn’t as impactive as first thought. Challenger Joe Soto put in a game effort for his part, especially seeing as it was his promotional debut.

Elsewhere on the card, the women’s bantamweight story continued to evolve, as Bethe Correia took on Rond Rousey’s team mate Shayna Baszler on the main card. Part of the “Four Horsewomen”, Baszler became the second of “Rowdy’s” crew to get a beat down from the feisty Brazilian. Having beat Jessyman Duke back at UFC 172.

“Pitbull” extended her record to 9-0 with the ugly second round TKO of Baszler, and it seems that Rousey now has her sights set on Correia. Check out what UFC president Dana White said on the rivalry between “Rowdy” and “Pitbull”, quotes from MMAJunkie.com:

“As soon as (Bethe) started talking, she texted me and said, ‘I want that fight; I want it now,’” White reported. “‘I want it before someone else beats her,’ and I said, ‘Calm down, lady. You’ve got other people to fight. We’ll figure it out.’ So Ronda wants that fight, too. We’ll see how this thing plays out.”

Rousey has made a habit of smashing all ‘legit’ contenders that the division has to offer, and the recent non-signing of Gina Carano presented the champion with one less challenger. This new beef between Correia and Rousey could potentially turn in to a Rousey/Tate scale feud. White continued:

“I don’t think Bethe moves up because of the rivalry; I think Bethe moves up because of what she did tonight,” White said. “That was crazy. The punches she hit (Baszler) with, I haven’t seen anything like that since (Phil) Baroni (versus) (Dave) Menne. She looked good tonight. That’s what’s going to get her a fight with Rousey.”

Finally, Correia gave her thoughts after her big win in California:

“I feel that I was born a fighter,” Correia said. “It just took a while to find myself in the sport, and just to compete in the UFC is a huge feat for anyone. To fight Shayna, she’s fought a lot of the top-10 fighters out there and beaten them, so it’s a huge feat for anyone to do that, and I want a chance at Ronda at some point.”

So it looks like a future bout between Rousey and Correia is likely, as long as the Brazilian can win another bout while Rousey takes care of the winner of Cat Zingano vs Amanda Nunes. We’ll see how this one plays out, but the back story and beef is certainly intriguing.  

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