The Official MMA Thread

[Stickman]

No shuttin him up now.

[Kaius]

I really thought after seeing Conor fight Mendes that Aldo was going to wreck him. Anything can happen...

Hopefully we actually get to see them fight in a rematch.

[Stickman]

Aldo reached too far on that punch, left his chin unguarded. Bad move.

[Kaius]

Oh, no doubt. Textbook straight counter to the hook.

[Stickman]

UFC just tweeted
"Conor McGregor's 13-second KO win over Jose Aldo is the fastest in UFC championship history"

[numbers]

Man, that was fucking awesome.

[Stickman]

Watch McGregor's and Aldo's corners react to UFC 194 title fight
2nd video down. The look on Buffer's face is priceless.

[Rangi Guy]

What a disappointing fight. At least the Rockhold/Weidman was amazing

[nyquillyn]

The Rockhold-Weidman fight should have ended in the 3rd. I understanding a ref may want to give a champion a chance sometimes, but that was fucking brutal and should have been called.

[Rangi Guy]

The Rockhold-Weidman fight should have ended in the 3rd. I understanding a ref may want to give a champion a chance sometimes, but that was fucking brutal and should have been called.

It was a tough one - at times it looked as if Weidman was still actively defending, and other times just getting slammed. Guessing it'll be a while before he's back in the octagon.
So who out there is finally going to get McGregor to shut up?

[swan]

That was a pretty awesome night of fights to watch. Really cool ending, even if it was too fast.

It was a bit tough to watch Weidman get pummeled so hard. Did not expect that at all.

[Kaius]

Rockhold looked a weight class above Weidman. If not two.

[Stickman]

**UFC 194 will go down as one of the most memorable shows in company history, setting a new gate record for Las Vegas with $10.1 million (this is not a company record as they did do a higher gate for UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre in Toronto in 2011). It blows away the previous UFC record for a Las Vegas gate, which was UFC 189 from this past July, which did $7.2 million. It is razor close but it appears that last night’s gate will slightly edge the Floyd Mayweather vs. Andre Berto fight from this past September and rank 20th all-time in the state of Nevada for all combat sports events.

The main event saw Conor McGregor immediately land with his left and send Jose Aldo to the mat, while Aldo was still able to land a left of his own going down and then McGregor finishes him with hammer fists in all of 13 seconds to become the undisputed featherweight champion. It was a remarkable performance and is as fascinating to watch from a business perspective as it an athletic one. McGregor is one of the sharpest minds that has ever competed in the sport and has the metrics to leverage just about anything deal he wants, he has cited the idea of co-promoting events with Zuffa in the future and if McGregor pushes that forward, it would be something entirely different that the sport and the UFC has never dealt with in the past. UFC’s public relations director Dave Sholler stated that metrics for the fight are “through the roof” and may top the number that Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm did last month.

The next step for McGregor will be an interesting one as his coach Jon Kavanagh told UFC president Dana White after the fight that this was the last time McGregor would cut down to featherweight. McGregor stated otherwise at the post-fight press conference and said he refuses to vacate the title and wants to fight at both featherweight and lightweight. Dana White did not attend the press conference and spoke to FS 1 and said that McGregor has the option of fighting Frankie Edgar next or he can fight the winner of next weekend’s lightweight title fight between Rafael dos Anjos and Donald Cerrone.

The attendance at the MGM Grand Garden Arena was 16,516 and the gate as noted was $10,100,000. Below are the results from the card:
*Court McGee def. Marcio Alexandre Jr. by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Yancy Medeiros def. John Makdessi by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Magomed Mustafaev def. Joe Proctor by TKO at 1:54 of Round 1
*Leonardo Santos def. Kevin Lee by TKO at 3:26 of Round 1
*Warlley Alves def. Colby Covington by guillotine choke at 1:26 of Round 1
*Tecia Torres def. Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Urijah Faber def. Frankie Saenz by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 30-27)
*Max Holloway def. Jeremy Stephens by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Demian Maia def. Gunnar Nelson by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-25, 30-25)
*Yoel Romero def. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza by split decision (29-27, 28-29, 29-28) – The closest fight on the card with Romero easily winning the first round, but wouldn’t say enough for a 10-8 round. Romero and Jacare had a super close second round where Jacare was recovering from the first round and Romero seemed tired. The most controversial moment of the night came when Romero blatantly grabbed the fence as Jacare went for the takedown, Jacare ended up taking him down but Romero reversed and got on top as referee Marc Goddard stood them up, warned Romero about grabbing the fence and allowed the two to stand. In this case, you could easily argue Romero should have lost a point and that by standing them up, you rewarded Romero, who committed the foul as Jacare – even on his back – was better equipped in that position.
*Luke Rockhold def. Chris Weidman by TKO at 3:12 of Round 4 to win the UFC middleweight title – This will go down as a defining fight for the legacy of Luke Rockhold, who was outstanding in this fight. Weidman edged the first round, Rockhold definitely won the second and then Weidman appeared to be on his way to winning the third, when a kick failed to connect and Rockhold was able to mount and nearly finish Rockhold as the round ended and won the round 10-8. The fourth continued where the last finished, where Rockhold was lighting him up with strikes on top and Herb Dean stopped the fight.
*Conor McGregor def. Jose Aldo by KO at 0:13 of Round 1 to win the UFC featherweight title

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Luke Rockhold and Chris Weidman and the performance bonuses went to Conor McGregor and Leonardo Santos, all for $50,000.

**The UFC announced on the broadcast that Johny Hendricks will be fighting Stephen Thompson on February 6th at UFC 196 in Las Vegas in a welterweight fight. Hendricks has hired a new nutritionist to avoid any problems in making the weight limit.

**The UFC will hold their final card of 2015 next Saturday night in Orlando, Florida with Rafael dos Anjos vs. Donald Cerrone for the lightweight title, a heavyweight bout between Junior dos Santos and Alistair Overeem and the return of Nate Diaz as he takes on Michael Johnson on the main card portion.

[Stickman]

**Former middleweight champion Chris Weidman released the following statement after his loss to Luke Rockhold this past weekend:

I will remember this moment forever. It has already changed me for the better. The motivation I have inside myself has never been stronger. I did not feel like myself in there for many reasons but it was a loss that I needed and deserved. I have been playing back different moments in the fight where i didn’t do or react the way I should have but this was all part of a true master plan that God has in store for me. I will be back and I will be champion again. I just wanna let everyone know that I am ok. I am so blessed with an amazing family, friends, team and fans. Thank you all so much for the support. It means more now than ever.

**Rockhold’s coach, Javier Mendez, shared a few thoughts about the fact that the fight couldn’t be stopped by throwing in the towel. In the 3rd round Weidman went for a spin kick, missed and got taken down. From there Rockhold gained full mount and started unloading big punches from the top. He did this for the remainder of the round. There was substantial time left and Weidman could do nothing but try to shield the punches with his arms. The referee, Herb Dean, kept a close eye on it and looked as though he was thinking about stopping it, but ultimately let the fight go to the end of the round.

“Let’s put it this way, I was cussing. I was cussing. I was literally just fucking pissed, you know? And I’m not really blaming Herb per say, I am blaming the way the system works. It needs to be like boxing where we as corners don’t have to go to the doctor to stop the damn fight and we can just stand up on the cage and the fight, or we throw in the towel. It should be a simplified rule just like boxing. Who knows the fighters better than the coaches, as far as what the fighters can do or can’t do? Who knows them better? We do. Not the doctor, not the refs, we do. If we see our fighter and he’s taking a beating, we should be able to throw in the damn towel without interruption from a doctor or anybody. And we shouldn’t be reprimanded for it. If anybody should be pissed off about it’s our fighter for throwing in the towel. Let us deal with that. I’m really angry about that because in Mexico, Scott Jorgensen was in the same scenario and I was like, ‘dammit,’ you know? This is a sport and when you see things like that it doesn’t make it too sporty for me. I am sorry that I’m angry about it, but it just angers me that fighters are getting injured more than they need to because of one stupid rule that prohibits us from doing a simple thing like boxing does. It (throwing in the towel) shouldn’t be looked down upon, if that isn’t an official rule, then they should be like, ‘hey guys we encourage you to not let your fighter take punishment.’ In this case, I bet you Ray Longo and Matt Serra were thinking, ‘Fuck I want to throw in the towel.’ I bet you they were. I bet you they weren’t thinking ‘Oh, come on Chris pull out of it.’ I bet you they were thinking ‘What the fuck is going on?’ They care so much about their fighter and they are such great coaches, I know they were thinking that. There needs to be a better way to stop these fights. Chris did not need to take that extra punishment, he did not. And I dare anyone to disagree with me.”

**The FS 1 preliminary fights from this past Saturday set a new record with 1,931,000 watching the fights prior to UFC 194. The previous high for a prelim card on the network was 1,554,000 from December 2013 going into UFC 168. The prelims from this Saturday were headlined by Urijah Faber and Frankie Saenz, which peaked at over 2.3 million viewers.

**A pair of fights have been added to the UFC’s Fight Night card in Pittsburgh on February 27th. In a middleweight bout, Roan Carnerio will be meeting Derek Brunson. Carneiro returned to the UFC last year and it will be a full year between fights for Carnerio after he beat Mark Munoz this past February. They have also added a welterweight fight between Brandon Thatch and the returning Siyar Bahadurzada, who last fought in December 2013.

**A lightweight fight between Melvin Guillard and Mike Bronzoulis has been added to the Bellator 149 card on February 19th in Houston, Texas. This is the card that will feature Ken Shamrock vs. Royce Gracie and Kimbo Slice vs. Dada 5000.

[Stickman]

**The Rizin Fighting Federation officially announced that Jaideep Singh will be the opponent for Fedor Emelianenko on December 31st and airing on Fuji TV in Japan and Spike in North America. The fight was first reported by Ariel Helwani a number of months back but wasn’t officially announced until Thursday night.

**The UFC has their final card of 2015 in Orlando on Saturday night and airing on FOX. The card is headlined by a rematch from 2013 with Rafael dos Anjos defending the UFC lightweight title against Donald Cerrone, Junior dos Santos returns after one-year layoff to meet Alistair Overeem, Nate Diaz is also back after a year off to fight Michael Johnson and the main card will kick off with Randa Markos meeting Polish fighter Karolina Kowalkiewicz.

**Regarding Diaz and Johnson, the pair were involved in a brief scuffle prior to weigh-ins today.

**Aljamain Sterling posted today that the UFC contacted his management and gave them the go ahead to start fielding outside offers. The UFC has a period of time where they can match any outside offers. Sterling’s contract finished last weekend after his win over Johnny Eduardo

[Stickman]

**The UFC held their final card of year on Saturday night with the UFC on FOX 17 show in front of an announced crowd of 14,459 and gate of $1,710,000 at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. Below are the results from the show:
*Francis Ngannou def. Luis Henrique by KO at 2:53 of Round 2
*Vicente Luque def. Hayder Hassan by anaconda choke at 2:13 of Round 1
*Kamaru Usman def. Leon Edwards by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Cole Miller and Jim Alers was declared a no contest at 1:44 of Round 2 – Miller was poked in the eye and told referee Herb Dean he couldn’t see and the eye was not opening and they had to end the fight.
*Nik Lentz def. Danny Castillo by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
*Tamdan McCrory def. Josh Samman by triangle choke at 4:10 of Round 3 – The first round was the closest. McCrory is so active off of his back and constantly threatening with submissions and putting on lots of pressure.
*Valentina Shevchenko def. Sarah Kaufman by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28) – Shevchenko clearly won the first two rounds and Kaufman won the third. Shevchenko looked very impressive and only took the fight on eight days’ notice.
*Nate Marquardt def. C.B. Dollaway by KO at 0:28 of Round 2 – Dollaway walked into a short counter right hand and was done. Marquardt is 36 years old and had lost 5 of his last 6 fights going into this one and had to win this or was likely going to be cut.
*Charles Oliveria def. Myles Jury by guillotine choke at 3:05 of Round 1 – Oliveira came in at 150.5 pounds, which is ridiculous, but most will forget that and just remember how good he looked in this fight. He clamped on a guillotine and Jury was forced to tap.
*Karolina Kowalkiewicz def. Randa Markos by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) – Markos definitely won the second round, but couldn’t vary up her striking in the first to clinch that round, while Kowalkiewicz definitely won the third round. **Nate Diaz def. Michael Johnson by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – As Diaz looked awful in his last fight a year ago, he came in looking great, he used his volume throughout the fight and was outstriking Johnson throughout the second and third rounds as Johnson slowed down, this was a great performance by Diaz. The fight ended with Diaz joking around and grabbing a knee bar on Johnson, who was upset and kicked him off, Diaz was constantly talking throughout the fight to throw Johnson off. After the fight, Diaz cut a profanity laced promo on Conor McGregor, which 10% ended up airing on FOX and the rest was censored.
**Alistair Overeem def. Junior dos Santos by TKO at 4:43 of Round 2 – Both were so tentative in the first and Overeem opening up a bit more in the second. Not a great fight, Overeem landed a right hook and Dos Santos fell down to the mat and Overeem swarmed him. This was the final fight on Overeem’s UFC deal and he put himself in a great spot as he could be the next in line to fight the winner of the Werdum vs. Velasquez rematch.
**Rafael dos Anjos def. Donald Cerrone by TKO at 1:06 of Round 1 to retains the lightweight title – Incredible performance, despite the length, by dos Anjos. He caught Cerrone with a straight left, then a left kick to the body and unloaded with a flurry, Cerrone tried to flee and then was put down and finished with strikes. This was a big win for dos Anjos and the story of dos Anjos representing Brazil against Conor McGregor, as McGregor goes for two titles could be a big fight in 2016.

**The Fight of the Night bonus went to Nate Diaz and Michael Johnson and the performance bonuses went to Rafael dos Anjos and Vicente Luque, all for $50,000.

**Ariel Helwani announced on the broadcast on Saturday night that Sage Northcutt will be part of the next FOX card on January 30th in Newark, New Jersey and fight undefeated Andrew Holbrook. Holbrook made his UFC debut this past July and defeated Ramsey Nijem by split decision and has been fighting professionally since 2012.

**Here are the main card results from the World Series of Fighting 26 event this past Friday night from Las Vegas at The Chelsea at The Cosmopolitan Hotel:
*Jake Heun def. Clinton Williams by split decision
*Josh Hill def. Bekbulat Magomedov by split decision
*Sheymon Moraes def. Robbie Peralta by TKO at 3:21 of Round 2
*Ozzy Dugulubgov def. Nic Herron-Webb by unanimous decision
*Alexandre de Almeida def. Lance Palmer by unanimous decision to win the WSOF featherweight title

**With the exception of Urijah Faber’s win over Frankie Saenz last weekend, it hasn’t been a good month for Team Alpha Male with Palmer, Danny Castillo, Chad Mendes and Paige VanZant all losing their fights over the past ten days.

[Stickman]

**The UFC is looking into a situation involving women’s bantamweight Julianna Pena, who was arrested late Saturday night / early Sunday morning after allegedly being involved in a fight outside of a bar in Spokane, Washington. Marc Raimondi at MMA Fighting reports she was released on a $2,000 bail on Sunday afternoon. Pena was arrested along with another unidentified person.

**Kelvin Gastelum has suffered an injury and is off of the UFC 195 card on January 2nd, where he was scheduled to fight Kyle Noke. Newcomer Alex Morono is taking the vacant spot in his debut with the promotion. Gastelum had just fought a five-round fight back in November against Neil Magny and it was a very short turnaround when the Noke fight was announced. The new bout is scheduled for the FS 1 prelims.

**Following the death of flyweight fighter Yang Jian Bing, ONE Championship is taking a big step in their attempt to curb weight cutting problems in the sport. The promotion announced through a press release on Wednesday, that they will begin a program where they are monitoring and weighing fighters multiple times before and during fight week in an attempt to find the fighter’s true walk around weight. Fighters will also be weighed three-hours before fight time. ONE Championship C.E.O. Victor Cui released the following statement regarding the change:

ONE Championship has paved the way for MMA in Asia and we have always been at the forefront of innovation for the sport. By banning weight cutting by dehydration, we are leading the way globally for enhanced safety standards for professional MMA athletes. We believe that through the implementation of this new weigh-in program, our fighters will enjoy a safer and healthier life inside and outside of the cage. I invite the other two major global MMA organizations, Bellator and UFC, to follow in our footsteps to protect athletes and to eliminate the process of weight cutting by dehydration.

**World Series of Fighting has a “Best of 2015” special that will be airing on NBC on Sunday at 2pm Eastern.

**A light heavyweight bout between Jimi Manuwa and Nikita Krylov has been added to the UFC’s Fight Night card on February 27th in London, England. The card is headlined by Michael Bisping and Gegard Mousasi in a middleweight bout and takes place from the O2 Arena.

**A bantamweight fight between former champion Joe Warren and Darrion Caldwell will headline the Bellator 151 show on March 4th in Thackerville, Oklahoma and airing on Spike TV.

**In case you were wondering what Nate Diaz had to say after his win last Sat:


**And McGregor's response:

"Line them up on their knees with their hands out," McGregor wrote. "I want them to beg me."

[Stickman]

**The UFC made a major announcement today and have changed the main event of the February 27th Fight Night card at the O2 Arena in London, England. The original main event was to feature Michael Bisping taking on Gegard Mousasi and will now feature Bisping taking on Anderson Silva. The news comes at a time when the UFC is attempting to grow the profile of UFC Fight Pass and this is a major step in that direction by having Anderson Silva fight on the streaming service.

Anderson Silva last fought at UFC 183, which was his return bout against Nick Diaz after missing a year of action due to a broken leg and generated in excess of 600,000 buys on pay-per-view. A fight with Silva and Bisping would probably do no less than 350,000 buys (and that may be conservative) so it’s a massive commitment that UFC is making to Fight Pass and sacrificing the immediate money from pay-per-view in an attempt to grow the service and reap the rewards years from now.

**One of the more iconic figures from the UFC’s early days, Emanuel Yarbrough, passed away on Monday. Yarbrough was the heaviest competitor to ever compete in the UFC when he fought Keith Hackney at UFC 3 in September of 1994. Despite his appearance, Yarbrough was a very accomplished athlete as a Division II football player and amateur wrestler, who would later move over to Judo and Sumo, though never at a high level. The image of Keith Hackney stopping Yarbrough with strikes at UFC 3 was the easiest clip in the world to replay if the slant was negative towards UFC and convey a sense of “no holds barred” with the giant weight discrepancy between the two. Yarbrough was 51 years of age at the time of his passing and below is one of his final interviews, which Cody Saftic of the Fight Network conducted back in October:

[Stickman]

**Below are the two Countdown to UFC 195 segments, focusing on the Robbie Lawler vs. Carlos Condit welterweight title fight and heavyweight bout between Stipe Miocic and Andrei Arlovski:



**The first Rizin Fighting Federation card took place early Tuesday morning from the Saitama Super Arena and turned out to be a fun show with lots of finishes (only one fight went the distance and they incorporate the old Pride rounds system of a 10:00 first round and two 5:00 rounds after that). The only negative I had on the show was the main event between Shinya Aoki and Kazushi Sakuraba. Aoki took him down quickly and mounted him with ease, Sakuraba then absorbed an unnecessary amount of strikes and finally the fight was stopped. Sakuraba had no business being in there and this was nowhere close to a competitive fight. Below are the results and the winners of the tournament meeting on Thursday’s New Year’s Eve card with the semi-finals and final.
*Tsuyoshi Kosaka def. James Thompson by TKO at 1:58 of Round 2
*Kirill Sidelnikov def. Carlos Toyota by TKO at 2:23 of Round 1 – Sidelnikov was once tabbed as Fedor’s protégé and hadn’t fought in five-years before this.
*Felipe Efrain and Yuki Motoya was ruled a no contest – this was a weird one because Efrain won by KO at 5:45 of the first round but because he missed weight, it was ruled a no contest
*Anatoly Tokov def. A.J. Matthews by KO at 0:55 of Round 1
*Hideo Tokoro def. Kizaemon Saiga by armbar at 5:16 of Round 1 – this was a fun grappling fight with Tokoro locking on an armbar at the end to get the submission.
*Hiroyuki Takaya def. Daiki Hata by unanimous decision
*Valentin Moldavsky def. Yuta Uchida by rear-naked choke at 2:20 of Round 1 in the alternate bout of the heavyweight tournament
*Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal def. Brett McDermott by KO at 9:10 of Round 1 in the heavyweight tournament – Mo continually took him down and then lit him up with strikes and sent him down to the mat for the finish.
*Teodoras Aukstuolis def. Bruno Cappelozza by KO at 3:32 of Round 1 in the heavyweight tournament
*Vadim Nemkov def. Goran Reljic by KO at 2:58 of Round 1 in the heavyweight tournament
*Jiri Prochazka def. Satoshi Ishii by KO at 1:36 of Round 1 in the heavyweight tournament
*Shinya Aoki def. Kazushi Sakuraba by TKO (corner stoppage) at 5:56 of Round 1

**Lorenzo Fertitta spoke to CNN about the giant year that the UFC had in 2015. Fertitta stated that they will generate about $600 million in revenue for 2015 and is a new record for the company, noting it was significant growth over the revenue generated in 2014. Fertitta stated that pay-per-view is their top revenue generator, followed by television rights fees for their various worldwide contracts and led by FOX in the U.S. and then mentioning their OTT service, Fight Pass. Fertitta also stated that their top athletes are making “multi millions of dollars”.

**It was revealed on today’s UFC press conference with Anderson Silva and Michael Bisping that the UFC 197 pay-per-view that was set for March 5th in Rio de Janeiro will no longer be taking place. Silva noted that he was in talks to fight on that card but that the show has been removed from the UFC schedule. Silva will be fighting Bisping on February 27th in London, England and will air on Fight Pass.

**The same February 27th card in London will also feature a middleweight bout between Gegard Mousasi (who was originally slated to headline the card against Michael Bisping) and Thales Leites.

**Below is the Al Jazeera documentary, “The Dark Side” and is getting a lot of attention because of the names attached to various PED allegations. It is a very controversial piece as it centers around an athlete named Liam Collins, who goes undercover and records numerous conversations with officials that are selling various drugs and informing Collins of other athletes they have worked with. The biggest name involved is Peyton Manning, whose wife was prescribed HGH from an anti-aging clinic out of Indiana with the allegations made by Charlie Sly, a doctor who has since recanted all of the statements he made in the documentary (and was filmed unknowingly). Manning has denied any wrongdoing and stating that anything his wife was prescribed is her private matter. The bigger takeaway should be the underbelly exposed and the availability of drugs to athletes, the willingness by questionable doctors in positions to prescribe various drugs and the means by which they can go to cover up prescriptions and cover their tracks, as well the latest cat and mouse techniques in regards to drug testing and drug use. One baseball player noted in the piece how he is often subjected to urine tests and only 1-2 blood tests per year. The popular drug throughout the documentary is Delta-2 (or D-2), which Sly has easy access to and believes that athletes on D-2 do not need to take testosterone if they are on it, although mentions a mentality that some athletes just don’t want to get off testosterone even if there is a drug that can achieve the same results. I suggest watching the entire documentary, you can question the way they went about gathering information and how credible of a source Charlie Sly will turn out to be, but without question you will get the understanding of the sports culture and athletes determined to find every edge possible for optimal performance and the struggle for effective drug testing to monitor and catch usage.


**Below is Episode 1 of UFC Embedded going into UFC 195 this Saturday night:

[Stickman]

Ronda Rousey 'Died' at UFC 193, Sister Says

Maria Burns Ortiz calls Rousey's loss to Holly Holm "the moment I saw someone I cared about have her soul crushed"

By Scott Rafferty December 31, 2015

Saying Ronda Rousey was devastated after her loss to Holly Holm would be an understatement.

In an interview with ESPN's Ramona Shelburne earlier this month, Rousey spoke about her shocking defeat to Holm for the first time. While it was clear that the only loss of her UFC career hit her hard – "I'm just really fucking sad," she said – Rousey may have been underselling the impact of the defeat just a bit. Because according to sister Maria Burns Ortiz, part of Rowdy died that night in Australia.

"I haven't rewatched [the fight]," Ortiz wrote on Vice Sports. "I haven't read about it. I won't. I don't see a point in reliving the moment when a part of my loved one died, when I saw someone I cared about have her soul crushed."

What angered Ortiz the most was the reaction from people following Rousey's loss. Other than the regular flood of trolls, it didn't help that a number of high-profile fight fans – Lady Gaga, Donald Trump and 50 Cent (or was it actually Floyd Mayweather?) to name a few – basically laughed in her face. That's what happens when you're headlining the year's biggest UFC fight, but it doesn't make the barbs hurt any less.

"I saw how horrible people can be to someone they don't even know, which made me even more appreciative when I saw how wonderfully Ronda's friends and family treated her," she continued. "Those are the people that matter."

Here's what also matters: Ronda will get her rematch against Holm!