Issue 123
December 2014
In the battle of undefeated female bantamweights, can ‘Alpha’ Cat usurp the reign of dominance enforced by the first lady of the UFC
Few should bet against the undefeated Cat Zingano winning something this year. If not Ronda Rousey’s UFC bantamweight championship, she looks like a strong contender for the Fighters Only World MMA Awards’ ‘Comeback of the Year’ trophy.
After taking a ferocious pounding in the first round of her UFC 178 fight against the fast-starting and always-aggressive Amanda Nunes, Zingano (9-0) seemed to put all the frustration and pain of a horrible year and a half into surviving until the break.
That she did was testament to her composure, defensive skill and most of all, sheer toughness. ‘Alpha’ turned the fight around completely in the second round, battering the tired-looking Nunes and finishing her with punches on the ground early in the third.
Zingano competed after a 17-month layoff, during which she lost a lucrative Ultimate Fighter coaching gig and resulting title shot against Rousey (10-0) thanks to a knee injury. She also had to cope with personal tragedy when her husband and coach Mauricio Zingano took his own life in January. The emotional mother-of-one’s come-from-behind win was hugely memorable. As was her April 2013 UFC debut.
Taken down and stunned by strikes early in the fight, Zingano fought back against Miesha Tate in the second-ever UFC women’s fight. Surviving second-round armbar and heel hook attempts, she punished Tate with punches, knees and elbows in the third, finally halting a superb fight in style to become the number-one contender for the title until injury derailed everything.
A strong finisher, just one of Zingano’s opponents – reigning Invicta flyweight champion Barb Honchak – has made the distance. Six of her stoppage wins came after the fight’s scheduled halfway point, but that means she’s dangerous at any time and patient enough to wait for her openings.
Making her professional debut in June 2008, a couple of months before Rousey headed to Beijing for the Olympics, Zingano’s career has been a roaring success when the bell rings, but it has been marked by long absences from action, with three separate layoffs of more than a year.
While this may be a notoriously unreliable indicator, it’s hard not to take note of the trouble Zingano had with Tate and compare it with Rousey’s pair of clashes with her bitter rival. Both grudge matches were notable for Tate’s stubborn defense and being two of Rousey’s three longest fights of her career, clocking in at 4:27 and 10:58. Though Tate never came anywhere near as close to troubling Rousey as she did Zingano.
But styles make fights and perhaps Zingano, with her blend of amateur wrestling, slick Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a dangerous array of Muay Thai skills, has the mythical secret formula to take the championship from one of the sport’s most dominant fighters.
While Zingano finishes fights late, Rousey finishes them in a hurry. Only Tate has ever taken her out of the first round, and Liz Carmouche is the sole remaining fighter to have survived past 66 seconds.
Her most recent challenger, Alexis Davis, lasted just 16 ticks before becoming Rousey’s second non-armbar victim. Thrown to the mat and pummeled with a brutal series of right hands, she was so out of it she tried to take down intervening referee Yves Lavigne.
Rousey’s growing confidence on her feet could be her undoing. It has been for plenty of other dominant grapplers who decided they wanted to stand and trade, but the huge improvement in her striking game is genuine.
She should be competitive enough to set up the usual, unstoppable pattern of punch-takedown-armbar-finish. A professional fighter for less than four years, Rousey has faced stronger competition than Zingano, including Sarah Kaufman and Sara McMann, who she defeated in a combined 120 seconds.
As one of the UFC’s most recognizable and bankable figures, she faces greater distractions and carries more pressure but shows no signs at all of it affecting her performances.
Whenever Rousey fights, it’s a big occasion. It has been since her first fight with Tate under the Strikeforce banner in March 2012. This will be no different and like all the rest, it’s hard to imagine anything other than an early win for Rousey. Zingano might be the division’s second best, but that’s a long way from first.
EXCITE-O-METER
9 out of 10
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