Stop Her If You Can: Is Ronda Rousey the Babe Ruth of MMA?

Stop her if you can.

That seems to be the theme that has formulated around UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey each time a fight draws near.

And it’s not without just cause.

Rousey has made six trips to the cage as a professional. And six times she has walked out of the cage following a first-round armbar finish of her opponent. You have to go back to her amateur bouts where, oh, wait, she won all three of her amateur bouts by way of armbar submission as well.

Nine for nine, all by armbar.

If that weren’t stunning enough – and it’s almost unheard of in the combat sports world – Rousey has logged a whopping nine minutes and 23 seconds of fight … in total … for those nine bouts.

Only her fight with Miesha Tate lasted more than a minute. She finished that fight at the 4:27 mark.

Could she be the Anderson Silva of the women’s side of mixed martial arts?

Perhaps, but Ultimate Fighter coach Chael Sonnen likens her more to baseball great Babe Ruth, who famously pointed to the center field seats at Wrigley Field during Game 3 of the 1932 World Series then proceeded to hit a home run – to center field – with his next swing of the bat.

“Ronda Rousey reminds me of an old-school baseball player where she comes out to the mound and points to where she wants to put the ball and that’s what she does with the armbar,” Sonnen noted on Tuesday night’s edition of UFC Tonight.

“She doesn’t hide her strategy. She doesn’t lock cameras out of her training sessions. She says come and look at it, I’m going for the armbar, I’m going to get it, and (nine) straight times she has.”

Rousey, at least in her professional fight career, has never been accused of a lack of confidence. She’s often outspoken, brutally honest, and doesn’t doubt her own abilities, but she doesn’t necessarily go as far as Sonnen in proclaiming that her armbar streak will continue.

She has no doubt that she’ll win; it’s just that there may come a time when the armbar isn’t the weapon available.

“I’m going to win, but I don’t know how,” Rousey commented, also on UFC Tonight. “I don’t have a game plan. We just have some ideas for the first exchanges.”

Count that as her version of modesty… because that’s about all you’re going to get. And who can argue with such a remarkable record of finishes?

In the end, however, Rousey has the mentality of a champion, to win, but win in whatever fashion presents itself.

“I’m interested in winning as quickly and efficiently as possible,” she declared. “If that’s through striking and that’s the first opportunity, then I’m going to go there, but if I see the first opportunity on the ground then I’m going to go there.

“It’s not like I walk in planning an arm bar because I want to have a legacy.”

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(Photo courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce)