Miesha Tate has many holes in her game. We've all seen them abused over and over in the Rousey fight and the Kedzie fight. And also the Kaufman fight.
Tate is not a good wrestler. Yes she wins that way but her takedowns and very subpar but she uses strength and tenacity to get it the ground over small weaker opponents and her offensive grappling is above average for the 135 division. Tate wrestled in high school and never at the college or international lvl.
Tate's stand up is horrible but this par for the course in wmma. Sadly for Tate she leaves herself open for the high kick which is virtually the only strike a wmma fighter can throw and really hurt another opponent.
Cat Zingano is a wrestler. She wrestled in college and at the international level as Catherine Albert. She was never the number one girl for USA (see Sara Mcmann) but she competed and was one of the top girls in the country.
Zigano has been focusing on bjj since college. She works at a black house affiliate full time with her husband. Her game is much more complete and technical compared to Tates. Cat is methodical and fine playing the inside clinch game and grinding for multiple rounds waiting for the opponent to make a mistake.
Cat's stand up is ok. Nothing special she had a few thai fights overseas and can probably hang with anyone not named Sarah Kaufman on the feet. It doesn't matter much because she will close the distance and get the clinch much like Rousey eating whatever weak ass punches she needs too.
Clear win for Zingano probably by decision with superior positioning against Tate.
Now for Cat vs Rousey. The number one thing Rousey holds over her previous opponents is time spent training. Almost all her previous opponents have less than 4 years training mma. With a bulk of that training focusing on stand up which is pretty useless in wmma. Rousey's judo training is what she uses and abuses. Almost nothing from her brief mma training is used except a pawing jab and modified grips without the gi. She is still doing judo inside an mma cage.
Strength and size is also needed to beat Rousey. Here is a recent picture of Cat.
And no Rousey and judo women in general are not 1 in a million type athletes. Yes they work hard but rousey would not beat most of the college women athletes at the division 1 level in any sport say in a nfl combine type setting. Rousey strengths are almost all geared towards judo.
Rousey's stand up is horrible we can pretty much skip this section of the breakdown. Not that it would matter if she was good anyways because she still would only be able to use it to score points since KO power doesn't really exist in wmma.
The meat of the RR vs Cat fight will be fought in clinching range. This is where rousey's strength's and weaknesses will come out. RR is a chain grappler and uses speed to overwhelm her opponents defenses. This has worked so far because opponents A> did not have proper footage of what rousey was going to execute. B> she was fighting girls so new to the grappling scene that the speed was too fast for these girls to counter because they were still thinking about moves instead of acting on instinct. for example Carmouche is just a blue belt.
The carmouche/tate fight showed where rousey is weak. It's giving her back. Although in both cases this was because she is so ultra aggressive and trained for being reactive instead of proactive for her defense. Still a blue belt had some success against her.
Cat has been wrestling most of her adult life and has some very good bjj experience and teachers. Her husband Zingano is a black belt and well respected in the bjj community. Rousey now has many minutes of grappling footage in the wild for all the bjj teachers to form various game plans for. Remember Carmouche's main bjj coach was a scrub named Walael Watson. A UFC washout.
Honestly I see this fight being a grind with Cat shutting down most take downs or getting right back up quickly. I think this will frustrate rousey and get her slightly panicking when her speed attacks are shutdown for long periods. I see Zingano slowely working the explosive Rousey down and taking her back and finishing what Tate and Carmouche couldn't. It wont be quick because Zingano is a grinder but she rarely makes positional mistakes that Rousey feeds off of.
Tate is not a good wrestler. Yes she wins that way but her takedowns and very subpar but she uses strength and tenacity to get it the ground over small weaker opponents and her offensive grappling is above average for the 135 division. Tate wrestled in high school and never at the college or international lvl.
Tate's stand up is horrible but this par for the course in wmma. Sadly for Tate she leaves herself open for the high kick which is virtually the only strike a wmma fighter can throw and really hurt another opponent.
Cat Zingano is a wrestler. She wrestled in college and at the international level as Catherine Albert. She was never the number one girl for USA (see Sara Mcmann) but she competed and was one of the top girls in the country.
Zigano has been focusing on bjj since college. She works at a black house affiliate full time with her husband. Her game is much more complete and technical compared to Tates. Cat is methodical and fine playing the inside clinch game and grinding for multiple rounds waiting for the opponent to make a mistake.
Cat's stand up is ok. Nothing special she had a few thai fights overseas and can probably hang with anyone not named Sarah Kaufman on the feet. It doesn't matter much because she will close the distance and get the clinch much like Rousey eating whatever weak ass punches she needs too.
Clear win for Zingano probably by decision with superior positioning against Tate.
Now for Cat vs Rousey. The number one thing Rousey holds over her previous opponents is time spent training. Almost all her previous opponents have less than 4 years training mma. With a bulk of that training focusing on stand up which is pretty useless in wmma. Rousey's judo training is what she uses and abuses. Almost nothing from her brief mma training is used except a pawing jab and modified grips without the gi. She is still doing judo inside an mma cage.
Strength and size is also needed to beat Rousey. Here is a recent picture of Cat.
And no Rousey and judo women in general are not 1 in a million type athletes. Yes they work hard but rousey would not beat most of the college women athletes at the division 1 level in any sport say in a nfl combine type setting. Rousey strengths are almost all geared towards judo.
Rousey's stand up is horrible we can pretty much skip this section of the breakdown. Not that it would matter if she was good anyways because she still would only be able to use it to score points since KO power doesn't really exist in wmma.
The meat of the RR vs Cat fight will be fought in clinching range. This is where rousey's strength's and weaknesses will come out. RR is a chain grappler and uses speed to overwhelm her opponents defenses. This has worked so far because opponents A> did not have proper footage of what rousey was going to execute. B> she was fighting girls so new to the grappling scene that the speed was too fast for these girls to counter because they were still thinking about moves instead of acting on instinct. for example Carmouche is just a blue belt.
The carmouche/tate fight showed where rousey is weak. It's giving her back. Although in both cases this was because she is so ultra aggressive and trained for being reactive instead of proactive for her defense. Still a blue belt had some success against her.
Cat has been wrestling most of her adult life and has some very good bjj experience and teachers. Her husband Zingano is a black belt and well respected in the bjj community. Rousey now has many minutes of grappling footage in the wild for all the bjj teachers to form various game plans for. Remember Carmouche's main bjj coach was a scrub named Walael Watson. A UFC washout.
Honestly I see this fight being a grind with Cat shutting down most take downs or getting right back up quickly. I think this will frustrate rousey and get her slightly panicking when her speed attacks are shutdown for long periods. I see Zingano slowely working the explosive Rousey down and taking her back and finishing what Tate and Carmouche couldn't. It wont be quick because Zingano is a grinder but she rarely makes positional mistakes that Rousey feeds off of.
That penetrating +280 any other result was about to take me to cancun free. 
