What was already an uphill battle for Ronda Rousey may have been made even steeper due to some questionable training choices.
At UFC 207, women's bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes snuffed out Rousey's comeback with a 48-second TKO of the former titleholder. That brief performance has been the subject of much scrutiny, the latest coming from FOX Sports analyst and retired fighter Kenny Florian.
On "The Anik and Florian Podcast," Florian claimed that Rousey reportedly engaged in limited sparring in preparation for the bout.
"My understanding is that perhaps Rousey didn't really spar leading up to this fight," Florian said, according to Anton Tabuena of Bloody Elbow. "I get that they're trying to preserve her from not getting hurt. But you've got to have some rounds. You've got to ready for the worst-case scenario, which is Amanda Nunes striking with you. She wasn't able to move her head, do anything defensively to avoid the striking skills of Amanda Nunes, and really paid for it."
Considering Rousey was coming off a 13-month break from competition, it would be easy to draw a connection between her lack of sparring and her disappointing outing. Florian was also critical of Rousey's coach, Edmond Tarverdyan, both for his lack of experience with MMA and his inability to help Rousey adapt.
"She had 411 days to improve as a striker, and unfortunately for her, just wasn't able to get it done," Florian said. "There really was no difference in what she did against Holly Holm. There was no head movement. There was no variety, There were no angles.
"She still needs to improve, overall. Even if we take out striking, what about developing skills in getting to the clinch safely? Something as basic as that, was not done. For me, as someone who has been in mixed martial arts a long time, that's just a very basic skill, and she didn't do that. There were no level changes, no leg attacks as far as dropping to try and get a single or a double leg. That really concerned me."
Florian later issued a tweet in which he said that he spoke with Rousey's camp who informed him that she had "four different quality sparring partners," though he did not retract his initial statement.
