Sara McMann: I Have To Be Dominant In All Areas To Defeat Ronda Rousey

No. 4–ranked UFC women’s bantamweight contender Sara McMann experienced a bit of a setback in her rise to Octagon fame when she was forced to withdraw from her scheduled UFC Fight Night 27 bout with former Strikeforce champion Sara Kaufman. However, it actually worked out for the best for the Olympic silver medalist wrestler.

McMann signed onto the biggest fight of her life when it was announced that she will face dominant champion Ronda Rousey in the main event of UFC 170 on February 22. It was thought that No. 1 contender Cat Zingano would face Rousey, but “Rowdy” is hungry to defend the belt, and Zingano still has a few months left on her ACL surgery rehabilitation regimen.

Enter McMann, an accomplished wrestler and grappler who dominated in her only Octagon bout, a UFC 159 TKO stoppage over Sheila Gaff. McMann sits with an impressive 7-0 record in mixed martial arts and could legitimately pose a threat to Rousey’s belt. She appeared on today’s edition of “The MMA Hour” to discuss where her strategy against Rousey:

“She looked like she was pretty comfortable on her feet. In my mind there’s not one specific area where I want to win and I think is going to make a huge difference. I need to win in every area to be the champion. If it goes to a decision it’s very hard to beat the champion, so you have to definitely dominate in every area. That’s how I feel.”

It sounds like McMann has an accurate assessment of the situation, because being anything less than dominant simply won’t cut it against a champion like Rousey. Their fight is a very interesting proposition. Both are Olympic medalists, Rousey in judo and McMann in wrestling, and both sit with spotless MMA records.

The bout should be a back-and-forth war that features a truly deserving champion once all is said and done. McMann is obviously a very tough competitor who is extremely well versed in Rousey’s strong point of submissions. Rousey has been unstoppable with her go-to armbar, but McMann said she sees some holes in her game that she’ll be looking to capitalize upon:

“I definitely saw things I could take advantage of. I’ll work on that and bring that to the fight in February. I think that if Ronda is the one enforcing the takedown, she gets a better position. So it doesn’t matter how good someone is at BJJ, some positions are extremely dominant, like side control and mount, and taking someone’s back. So when you control the takedown, you can control a lot more and put yourself in dominant position.”

That’s an interesting position from a very knowledgeable and experienced fighter in McMann. She’s one hundred percent correct in her assessment that Rousey is usually the one looking to score the throw or takedown, because most of her opponents are leery of going to the ground because of the glaring threat of her armbar.

That dynamic undoubtedly gives her the edge in positioning, and it’s something that McMann will be looking to reverse with her wrestling skills. Miesha Tate wasn’t able to take down Rousey despite a few attempts, but she’s far from the pure wrestler that McMann is.

McMann touched on the fact that she’ll be training with partners who have experience in both McMann and Rousey’s strong suits:

“I have some friends who have done wrestling and judo, which I think is even better, so yeah, you have to. I’m the kind of person that believes if you want to win a world championship, you start the day after the world championships previously, and you start building that muscle memory.”

McMann is already preparing for the toughest test of her MMA career. She has the pedigree and skills to become champion. But will she put it all together to dethrone the controversial face of women’s MMA?

Photo Credit: Brad Penner for USA TODAY Sports