Joe Rogan: Ronda Rousey Could Only Pull ‘Movie Bulls—‘ With Certain Opponents

Joe Rogan used to be Ronda Rousey’s biggest fan, but after she suffered a shocking knockout loss to Holly Holm, he thinks she should change nearly everything about her career…

Now that the MMA world has had over six weeks to let the collective shock of Ronda Rousey’s head kick knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 settle in, it’s hardly a surprise that anyone and everyone involved with fighting has weighed in with their opinions of what went wrong for ‘Rowdy’ on that fateful evening.

The speculation ranged from Rousey’s overconfidence in her boxing against a former 17-time world champion, the distractions from doing a massive amount of media interviews and movie/book promotion, and even the drama that arose from her mother’s beef with her head coach Edmond Tarverdyan and her own highly-publicized relationship with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne.

It was an exhausting three-month whirlwind that ended in one of the worst possible results for the formerly dominant champ, but in reality, it was probably a combination of those things that lead to her first-ever loss in the Octagon. One man knows Rousey much better than most, and he’s also been one of her biggest supporters. That man is Octagon commentator Joe Rogan, who recently met up with Bloody Elbow’s Stephie Haynes to discuss Rousey’s harrowing loss.

Many believe that Rousey was made the victim of poor coaching, and the fact Tarverdyan told her she was doing great after obviously losing the first round to Holm was a telltale sign that perhaps some of her mother’s intense criticism was true. Rogan expanded upon that belief with his view that Tarverdyan absolutely told her the wrong thing when she returned to the stool after round one:

“When you go back to a corner after a round like that, which was a round that was just fraught with peril and problems, you’ve got to get some tactical advice and you’ve got to have a corner person who’s going to figure out a way to tell you how to change gears. You’ve got to have a Plan B. I don’t know if she had a Plan B. I don’t know if there was ever any consideration that the charge at Holly wouldn’t work.

“So, as she’s charging after her like that, she’s getting tagged, and she’s getting weaker and weaker, more and more tired, she’s committing 100%. She’s essentially sprinting for five minutes, and when she gets back to the corner, her corner was telling her, ‘You’re doing great.’ Okay, that’s fucking crazy talk. That’s just nonsense. Everything about that is wrong. She’s not doing great. You can’t tell her she’s doing great.”

Rousey will now presumably head on to a rematch with Holm, possibly at July’s blockbuster UFC 200, but there are still major question marks as to whether or not she’ll be ready both physically and mentally. Rogan believes the only way to win back her belt is to switch camps to a much more well-rounded one.

Read on to find out where Rogan thinks Rousey should switch her camp to…

“Ronda’s got to go to a camp that has the full arsenal. She’s got to go to a Firas Zahabi or a Matt Hume, or someone like that, in my opinion. If I was talking to her, that’s what I would tell her. I’d say, ‘You can’t just train with a judo coach and Edmond holds the pads for you.’ Edmond has definitely done some great things for her boxing technique, that can’t be denied. Her combinations when she hits the pads are very impressive, but there are other elements that come with striking. It’s not just about throwing your hands and having the technique look good.”

Finally, Rogan opened up on the other aspect of Rousey’s celebrity, that of her growing forays into films. He believes that while Rousey could act and pull off both worlds against the lesser competitors, she obviously now has to decide if she wants to be a movie star or a champion fighter, because she can’t have both with a champion like Holm around:

“The other advice to Ronda Rousey is you’ve got to figure out what you want to do. Do you want to be a gigantic celebrity or do you want to be the best fighter on the planet? Because if you want to be the best fighter on the planet, you have to pursue that only. I think with this movie bullshit, she could pull it off with some of the girls with all these distractions and all this nonsense, but I don’t think they allow her the amount of resources–mental, physical, everything…all of the above–that she’s going to need at her disposal to be the very best that she can be. You don’t want to be good enough; you want to be the best that you can be. I don’t think she was the best that she could be. In my eyes, she was not properly prepared for that fight, whether physically or technically.”

Rogan has long been one of Rousey’s biggest fans so to say, even nearly breaking down in tears in her post-fight interview after beating Bethe Correia at UFC 190. But it only took one devastating loss for Rogan to question everything about her career in and out of the cage, even if there are some very valid points made.

Do you agree with the color commentator, and will Rousey actually listen to any of this advice?