12 years ago this week Ronda Rousey made her UFC debut and changed the MMA history forever when she became the very first female athlete who won a fight in the promotion.
In February 2013, a very special UFC event was held in Anaheim, California -supplied by former StrikeForce champion Ronda Rousey and the popular veteran Liz Carmouche.
UFC 147 not only represented the very first title fight of women in the promotion, but it was actually the first time that two female MMA hunters had locked up the horns under the UFC banner.
Despite an early fear in which she sustained a horrible injury, 'Rowdy' certainly did not disappoint – it is time to look back at when history was made.
Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images
Ronda Rousey wrote history as the very first female UFC winner
After Zuffa LLC StrikeForce bought in 2011, Ronda Rousey made her promotion debut in the main event of UFC 147 against Carmouche.
While Rousey was generally expected to walk with relatively ease through 'Girl-Rilla', her very first fight under the bright lights of the UFC banner could not have got a worse start.
Within 40 seconds of the very first round, Carmouche Rousey would skillfully reversed while they climb against the side of the cage and noticed that she was driving the back of her heavy favorite enemy.
“I hurried at this Takedown, I tried to hurry to put everything in,” Rousey later explained in a Watch-Back interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“I had the option to get her on my guard or get up and give up my back. And because the guard is one of the best positions in Carmouche, I felt that giving up my back was better [option]. “
“I can defend a choke without hands, no problem,” she told, as she saw Carmouche try to close a standing second-hand choke, she heard something popping.
“Then I felt my sinuses popping and then my guard came out and tore my whole mouth open … She pulled so hard in my mouth that she got my top row of teeth on her arm.”
Although I had disrupted 'my jaw', and had the feeling that her mouth watch “had torn the whole in my mouth,” Rousey succeeded in throwing in Carmouche from her back and after another clambered, ended up in top position.
“She tries to throw her legs over my head and that was her mistake,” noted the future Hall of Famer with an enthusiastic grin on her face; Only a few seconds later she had packed Carmouche's arm and protected another victory of the Armbar entry.
Rousey not only became the very first UFC champion for ladies who have night and the very first female hunter to get her hand in the famous Octagon, but it was also the moment that her championship mentality was re-defined.
“That was the moment that I realized that I was willing to die to win this fight; I was ready to be a quadribe tegic to win that fight – it was so important to me that I didn't care if I broke my neck. “
Dana White and UFC hunters respond to the debut gain of Ronda Rousey
At the time, there were many unskilled fans who criticized the UFC for placing a women's fight at the top of a PPV invoicing-Dana White would return to the post-fighting pressure.
“It is 2013, I never expected such a Goofy recoil from people. What is great is the way in which the media have dealt with this fight. The regular media were great. It got the respect it deserved.
“Sports center tweeted all night over the fight. They have never done that before. It was on the front page of CNN, Sports Illustrated, the way the media treated this fight was great and those two went inside and delivered tonight. “
Rousey's performance was celebrated in the MMA world, with a whole series of well-known names that greet both the result and what it meant for the sport as a whole.
Tony Ferguson called the event a 'memorable experience', Sean Shelby noted that it was a 'rather amazing moment in time', while entry Ace Demian Maia teased: 'I have to learn those bricks'.
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