Dana White 1, Ronda Rousey 0 for the UFC women’s bantamweight belt

Ronda Rousey reluctantly accepts her bantamweight belt from UFC president Dana White for a photo with challenger Liz Carmouche.

Ronda Rousey has yet to lose in the cage, but she begrudgingly accepted defeat on the stage Thursday.

At one point during the UFC 157 press conference at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Rousey said the only people she has left to prove wrong are those who say she doesn’t deserve the bantamweight title, which she was awarded by virtue of being the 135-pound champion in Strikeforce before it was absorbed by the UFC.

Then again, she kind of agrees with them.

“I won’t consider myself the UFC champion until I win a belt inside the Octagon, and that’s why you won’t see me touching or carrying this belt until after this fight,” she said.

But when it came time for Rousey and Carmouche to pose for pictures, White approached Rousey with the belt. The champ appeared to resist posing with the title, but the boss ultimately won that decision.

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Ronda Rousey talks about … Edmond Tarverdyan

We asked UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey to discuss some of the people chiefly responsible for her success. We will post one each day leading up to Rousey’s first defense of her 135-pound title Saturday against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Today, Rousey talks about Edmond Tarverdyan, her striking coach who runs Glendale Fighting Club in Glendale North Hollywood and has been in Rousey’s corner — figuratively and literally — throughout her MMA career:

Edmond is everything. He’s the brains behind the whole fight camp. He’s like one of my best friends. He’s my mentor. He’s my coach, He’s the person that … he’s my guardian. He oversees everything. He makes sure I’m OK. He’s so on top of everything. He coordinates the whole camp.

He pretty much, like, I really feel like the whole team and the whole camp is led between me and him, really more like a partnership, where’s he’s the head coach and I’m the athlete that it’s all centered around. But we really make every decision together, the both of us. We really make sure we agree before we take any sort of action.

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Ronda Rousey talks about Cyborg’s move to Invicta

Ronda Rousey was long thought to be a no-brainer superfight opponent for Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos, who had dominated all opposition in Strikeforce at 145 pounds. But things haven’t panned out.
Rousey dropped down to 135 pounds and won the Strikeforce bantamweight title and has since been named the UFC bantamweight champion. Santos tested positive for the steroid stanozolol, was stripped of her featherweight title and suspended a year.
With Santos’ ban recently lifted and Strikeforce essentially absorbed by the UFC, her options were limited when she declared she couldn’t safely cut enough weight to make 135 pounds.
So Rousey seemed amused by last week’s news that Santos had requested to be dropped from the UFC so she could sign with Invicta Fighting Championships.
“I think it’s just a plea for attention and an attempt to try and stay relevant. I mean, she hasn’t had a recorded win in over three years and the fight that she picked up is a chick that I beat in 26 seconds while I had nine stitches in my foot from a pitbull bite three days before,” Rousey said, referencing her March 2011 pro-debut victory over Ediane Gomes, who will fight Santos on April 5. “My mom hit me with a text the day they announced it and she’s like, “Unless she walks in and hits her and the other girl explodes, I’m not gonna be impressed.
“So I don’t know what she’s really trying to prove with this fight because it’s not gonna prove anything. But maybe it’s the only chick they could find to pick it up.”

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Dan Henderson addresses TRT talk before UFC 157

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) was thrust into the spotlight when UFC president Dana White, who previously hadn’t questioned its use by his fighters, criticized it last week, saying it has now become a way for fighters to cheat.
Dan Henderson, who has admitted to being one of several fighters in the UFC to undergo TRT and receive a Therapeutic Use Exemption, said his doctor had recommended it and that he’d been using it for five or six years.
“Before I did anything I called the athletic commission and made sure it was OK. And this was long time ago and they said no problem,” Henderson said. “I would welcome random drug testing for that and everything. I think that would help clean up the sport a lot and give it a better … when people look at it, there’s no bad taste in anybody’s mouth if the UFC really implements random drug testing.”
Henderson also made a case for fighters being judged on a case-by-case basis.
“I think maybe the UFC needs to have everyone see their doctor to get approved to begin with and go through their testing and make sure it’s legitimate and then monitor it a little bit better,” Henderson said. “It’s not too tough to monitor.”
When asked about White’s comment that if a fighter’s testosterone levels are too low, then they’re probably too old to be fighting, the 42-year-old smiled and shrugged it off.
“I don’t take anything he says personally,” he said. “He says a lot of things that are little bit off the wall. So I’m not worried about what he has to say.”

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Fighters fine with Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche as UFC 157 main event

The UFC’s decision in December to make Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche the main event over the highly anticipated light heavyweight battle between former Pride champion Dan Henderson (29-8) and former UFC champion Lyoto Machida (18-3) initially drew a negative reaction from a member of Henderson’s camp.
Henderson has since said he’s fine with it — not only is he a fight fan, but it means the MMA veteran has to fight only three rounds instead of five.
Add Machida to the list of those approving: “No problem for me. I appreciate that.”
Bantamweight Urijah Faber said it was cool to see such a historic event taking place, especially with a 2008 Olympic judo bronze medalist in Rousey facing a former U.S. Marine sergeant in Carmouche.
“You’ve got an Olympic athlete and a military veteran. It’s a lot of the same storylines you’ve seen throughout the history of our sport,” said Faber, who will fight Ivan Menjivar on the main card. “It’s great to see the women stepping in and doing it big.”
When someone inquired about Faber possibly facing bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz for a third time, “The California Kid” came up with this gem.
“I’d rather fight Ronda at this point,” he joked. “She’s got 185,000 followers on Twitter and Dominick has about 75 (thousand), so … Ronda, let’s do this!”

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Ronda Rousey a rock star at UFC 157 open workouts

For anyone questioning the decision to put women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey in the main event of UFC 157, the rock-star reception Rousey received Wednesday answered a lot of doubts.
With some fans pressed against the Octagon and others at least four-deep behind the ropes, Rousey was easily the star of the open workout at the UFC gym in Torrance.
The Venice resident, who in the first women’s fight in UFC history will defend her belt against Liz Carmouche (7-2) on Saturday at the Honda Center in Anaheim, stepped into the cage with striking coach Edmond Tarverdyan and other members of Glendale Fighting Club. Rousey (6-0) worked on her throws, sparring, grappling and cardio before greeting fans who were clamoring for photos and autographs.
While Rousey has been in high demand with the media leading up to this historic fight, even she was taken aback by the attendance
“I didn’t think it would be this big. It’s a little bit surprising. I just feel bad I can’t get to everybody,” Rousey said. “A lot of people go through a lot of trouble to come to these events and to see me for a few seconds, and I just don’t have a few seconds for everyone. So to everybody I missed, I’m sorry. I appreciate you guys taking the time, but there’s only one of me.”

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UFC cuts 16 fighters, including Jon Fitch

Ariel Helwani just came out with a blockbuster on Twitter that the UFC has cut 16 fighters, including former welterweight championship contender Jon Fitch.

Helwani’s story also listed the other fighters cut: Wagner Prado, Mike Russow, Jacob Volkmann, Vladimir Matyushenko, Che Mills, Jay Hieron, Terry Etim, Paul Sass, Jorge Santiago, Mike Stumpf, Simeon Thoresen, C.J. Keith, Motonobu Tezuka, Josh Grispi and Ulysses Gomez.

Making it a tad awkward was Gomez’s reaction to Helwani’s tweet:

Each of the 16 fighters had lost his most recent fight, but one usually had to piece together a two- or three-fight losing streak to get dropped by the UFC. Those days are apparently no longer.

The 34-year-old Fitch (24-5-1) lost a three-round unanimous decision to Demian Maia at UFC 156 on Feb. 2 to fall to 1-2-1 in his past four fights. He was ninth in the most recent UFC welterweight rankings, which are voted on by the media.

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Ronda Rousey talks about … Gene LeBell

We asked UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey to discuss some of the people chiefly responsible for her success. We will post one each day leading up to Rousey’s first defense of her 135-pound title Saturday against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Today, Rousey talks about Gene LeBell, a longtime family friend and legendary judo champion who helps run Hayastan MMA Academy in North Hollywood and has been in Rousey’s corner — figuratively and literally — throughout her MMA career:

Gene’s great. He’s known my mom from before I was born. Him and Gokor (Chivichyan) are kind of tied together in my mind in a way. I’ve never really been one to see them separately.

Gene’s been fantastic. He just always got caught up in ways of being so respectful, so supportive when a lot of people had burned their bridges with me and thought I was a waste of time. He’s just had such unwavering faith in me since the beginning that I really cherish him as a really close family friend.

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The latest from Liz Carmouche

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We wrote this story about women’s bantamweight title challenger Liz Carmouche, who fights champion Ronda Rousey in the main event Saturday at UFC 157 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Here are some quotes from Carmouche that didn’t make it into the story:

ON DEALING WITH THE INCREASED MEDIA AND PRESSURE:

I’m able to manage it. I’m really enjoying getting a chance to meet new people and to interact and that’s really I think what’s getting me through this. I think it might be overwhelming if I wasn’t making connections and getting to know each person that I get to interview with.

ON THE LACK OF TRASH-TALKING BETWEEN HER AND ROUSEY:

I really feel like we both understand where we’ve come from. I respect the fact she’s the current champion and she was the Strikeforce champion and I respect everything she’s done in this sport. And there are things she’s doing to help make the sport grow for women’s MMA. And she’s the reason it’s in the UFC. But it takes two to tango and I think she knows that and respects my approach and understands where I’m coming from and that’s not my personality. I’m not a trash-talker. I’m not gonna engage, and in all honesty you’re not gonna be able to get in my head if you really want to.

ON HER UNPREDICTABLE FIGHTING STYLE:

It just happens. I never plan to do some crazy stuff. I’ll have these dreams where I’ll just wander off  and thought about, “Oh, I’m gonna do this craziness! I’m gonna jump off her shoulders and then spin her back and do this!” but I never really think that’s gonna happen. … Some of it I control and half the time it’s just my body going on auto-drive doing its own thing.

ON BEING FROM SAN DIEGO AND THE FIGHT BEING IN ANAHEIM:

I can’t even really put numbers on how many people are gonna come up for this fight. I’ve had so many friends and family and people that go to the gym say that they’re gonna come out. If we were open Saturday night at my gym, nobody would be there because everybody’s either at somebody’s house watching on pay-per-view or they’re making the trip all the way from San Diego to Anaheim to see me in person.

ON HEADLINING UFC 157 OVER DAN HENDERSON VS. LYOTO MACHIDA:

You know, it came as a shock to me too when I found out. “You’re gonna be in a UFC fight, you’re gonna be fighting Ronda.” I thought OK, maybe we’ll be on the undercard or preliminaries instead of headlining. I have so much respect for Machida and for Henderson and I’m fans of both of them as athletes, so it’s kinda awkward for me to be headlining over them. And I don’t wanna take anything away from them because I do respect them so much. But I’m also grateful for this situation and being able to be that person and be in that position and I’m not gonna downplay that at all.

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Ronda Rousey talks about … Gokor Chivichyan

We asked UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey to discuss some of the people chiefly responsible for her success. We will post one each day leading up to Rousey’s first defense of her 135-pound title Saturday against Liz Carmouche at UFC 157 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Today, Rousey talks about Gokor Chivichyan, a longtime family friend who runs Hayastan MMA Academy in North Hollywood:

“Gokor, I’ve known since I was a little kid. He had the place where the tough guys were.

My mom was very smart where she’d make me go to different judo clubs a week. She’d make me go to four to five different judo clubs a week. She would have me go to some places where the kids were my size and I could really fight hard and try all my judo stuff. She’d have me go to judo places where they had very traditional Japanese style of judo where I’d fight and learn how to defend that kind of style.

And then she had me go to Gokor, where everyone beat me up and knocked me around and they had that European wrestling style. I think I’ve been going there since I was around 12 or so. And they were great. They really helped my confidence a lot. You’re a 13-year-old girl and you completely walk into a room full of men who don’t even speak your language. That really translates into every facet of your life. They really helped me learn not to be intimidated by anyone, because let’s be honest: They’re an intimidating bunch.”

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