5 Reasons to Watch: UFC 193: Rousey vs. Holm
UFC 193 is expected to pack more than 70,000 people into Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia as Ronda Rousey looks to defend her bantamweight title again when she faces Holly Holm.
Rousey has become the biggest superstar who ever fought in the UFC over the course of the past year and on the heels of her mega-show in Brazil in August, she's poised for another monster card this weekend.
Holm will look to upset the apple cart when she faces Rousey in her third UFC fight after a long career spent in the boxing arena.
Holm is a former boxing champion who defended her titles 18 times, with all the credentials to back up her spot in the main event, but as a 20-to-1 underdog, does she have what it takes to take what Rousey has?
Also on the card, Joanna Jedrzejczyk looks for her second straight title defense at 115 pounds as she faces rising contender Valerie Letourneau, who has looked very impressive since dropping to the strawweight division.
There are a ton of great fights this weekend, but we're going to give you five good reasons to tune into UFC 193: Rousey vs. Holm, which airs Saturday at 10 p.m. ET.
It's Ronda Rousey
At this point, Rousey is no longer just a UFC fighter and champion — she's a pop culture phenomenon. Whether it's appearing on "The Tonight Show" or casually dropping the word that she'd like to join the Marvel cinematic universe as Ms. Marvel, Rousey has transcended the sport and everything she does these days is news.
But Saturday night, Rousey gets back to her first love and that's fighting, as she looks to defend her title for the seventh time, and the third time in 2015. The attention Rousey receives before a fight always pays off when she steps inside the Octagon and puts on the kind of performances that are not only shocking but often awe-inspiring.
Whether she's tapping out undefeated contenders in 14 seconds flat or face-planting a trash-talking Brazilian in her home country, Rousey seems to make the impossible seem possible and there's never a moment she's performing when all eyes shouldn't be on her.
The Wolverine
In the co-main event, Jedrzejczyk will look for another title win in 2015 after already dispatching Carla Esparza and Jessica Penne in back-to-back fights. Jedrzejczyk has burst on the scene as the new face of the strawweight division with her vicious punching power and brutal TKO wins, in her past two fights in particular.
It's not the norm for fighters the size of Jedrzejczyk to go out and knock out opponents with such force, but that's the kind of style this Polish powerhouse possesses and she looks to be on the path to become another dominant UFC champion.
Jedrzejczyk has been so impressive with her striking and combinations that her opponents often don't know what's hit them until it's too late. She blitzes fighters with three and four punches at a time and maybe the scariest thing about Jedrzejczyk is that she's always going for the kill.
Jedrzejczyk has no desire for the judges to get involved in her fights so she goes out with a killer instinct to put her opponents down and out before the final horn comes close to sounding. She's a rare breed and maybe the next great champion in the UFC, and that always makes for can't-miss television.
Upset-Minded
There's no way to ignore the betting odds going into this weekend's fight card — especially those in the main and co-main events.
Holm will enter her fight with Rousey somewhere in the neighborhood of a 20-to-1 underdog while Letourneau has even bigger odds going against her as she sits at about a 21-to-1 underdog against Jedrzejczyk. Despite those gaudy numbers, there are ways that both fights could end up as massive upsets by the end of the night.
Holm is a style matchup that Rousey has never faced before. She's a tall, rangy boxer with great footwork and technical prowess on the feet that could give anyone trouble at 135 pounds. Holm also has the benefit of working with a championship team who will get her ready for every scenario in this title fight. Her trainers Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn are responsible for leading fighters such as Jon Jones, Carlos Condit and Georges St-Pierre into title fights, so getting ready for Rousey isn't a daunting task to these MMA masterminds, it's just one more challenge to overcome.
As for Letourneau, she's got size on her side as one of the biggest fighters at 115 pounds and while she hasn't fought anyone at Jedrzejczyk's level in the UFC, the American Top Team fighter is no stranger to facing the best of the best in the world.
Much like Holm, Letourneau also has a championship team behind her that will give her every opportunity to pull off the upset and leave Australia with a title headed back to Coconut Creek, Florida.
The Rematch
No one could have expected when Mark Hunt and Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva first met in December 2013 that the heavyweight fight would result in one of the greatest and bloodiest battles in UFC history, but that's exactly what happened.
And now they are going to do it again.
Hunt and Silva battled it out over five rounds in Australia the first time and they'll look to duplicate that performance in a three-round fight this weekend at UFC 193.
Both fighters have faced a lot of ups and downs since their first meeting, but Hunt and Silva seem to bring the best out of each other and this fight should be something special. Silva most recently got back on track with a knockout of Soa Palelei, while Hunt will look for redemption after he suffered a one-sided loss to Stipe Miocic in his last trip to the Octagon.
Listen, it's tough to expect a rematch will ever live up to the original — that's like saying a sequel will be better than the first film — but it has happened and could happen again on Saturday night. Even if this isn't a war like the original bout, considering both Hunt and Silva pack some serious power, chances are one of them is going down and probably going down hard to bring this one to a close.
The Show Stealer
There's always a fight on the card that may not be getting the same amount of attention as the main event, but Uriah Hall and Robert Whittaker should get your attention when they meet on Saturday night.
Hall is fresh off a huge win in which he uncorked a spinning heel kick followed by a flying knee that knocked out Gegard Mousasi for the first time in his career. Hall always has been capable of those kinds of finishes ever since he flattened Adam Cella during his season of "The Ultimate Fighter" with a spinning kick that remains one of the most talked about knockouts in UFC history.
On the other side of the Octagon stands Whittaker, who has found new life since moving up to middleweight after a run at 170 pounds following his season of "The Ultimate Fighter". Whittaker has vicious knockout power in both hands and he showed that off with finishes of Brad Tavares and Clint Hester.
Considering the kind of fights they've been having lately, don't blink when Hall and Whittaker step into the cage on Saturday because this could end up being the highlight moment of the entire show.
UFC 193 will air Saturday night at 10 p.m. ET on pay-per-view with the UFC 193 prelims kicking off on FS1 at 8 p.m. ET!
