Less than five years ago, UFC president Dana White stated that “women will never fight in the UFC“. What a difference a few years makes. Today, the UFC has two (somewhat) thriving women’s divisions, and Ronda Rousey is arguably the biggest star of the promotion. And now we have our first Pay-Per-View card with two headlining matchups featuring the two women champions defending their titles. And despite both of these fights being major mismatches, and the fact that I’m still somewhat lukewarm on WMMA as a whole, I am very much looking forward to this card.
A couple of other oddities about UFC 193. First, I happened to give every fight on the main card the same valuation of $10. This was not intentional – I truly am more or less equally interested in all five PPV bouts. Second, this is the only card of the year where the cable-broadcast prelims received a negative net valuation. The fights slated to be of Fox Sports 1 are mostly stinkers, and the only interesting preliminary fight on the card is buried as the opening bout on the Fight Pass portion of the event.
Main Card (Pay-Per-View)
Main Event: (C) [#1 W135] Ronda Rousey vs [#8 W135] Holly Holm for the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship
Worth: $10
Why: This fight is a huge mismatch, at least judging from what I’ve seen so far in Holly Holm’s two UFC fights. Despite Holm’s boxing credentials, she lacks knockout power in her punches, and failed to score a knockdown or even do any significant visible damage to her opponents. Most of the knockouts in her pre-UFC MMA career came from kicks, but she is unlikely to be throwing much of those given the threat of the takedown. And once Rousey gets this fight to the ground, it will be as good as over. Nonetheless, I am looking forward to another episode of the Ronda Rousey show. Rousey does something crazy in every fight, whether it’s submitting Cat Zingano with her signature armbar in 14 seconds, or knocking out Bethe Correia (who was supposed to have a striking advantage over Rousey) in 34. The likelihood of Holm winning this fight, or even lasting a round, is slim to none. The only real question is ‘how will Rousey dispatch of her opponent this time, and how quickly will she do it?’ The answer, in my opinion, is worth $10 to find out.
[#6 MW] 
[#12 MW] 
[#13 W125] 
[#11 SW] 
