In the wake of Ronda Rousey’s one-sided KO loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193 this past weekend the former champion’s long-time coach Edmond Tarverdyan has come under fire, with many experts believing that the 28 year-old wasn’t properly prepared to face a striker of her opponent’s caliber.
Famed boxing coach Freddie Roach was particularly scathing in his post-fight remarks, offering his opinion that based on her performance Rousey didn’t seem to have grasped some of the fundamentals of boxing.
“[Holm] came out as a leftie and a southpaw and Rousey had no idea how to deal with that,” Roach told FightHubTV. “It was embarrassing a little bit. No one ever taught her anything about boxing.”
Roach isn’t the only one to say so however, with retired UFC Fighter turned FOX Sports 1 analyst Kenny Florian also noting on his podcast with Jon Anik that Rousey didn’t have the basic footwork to deal with a southpaw.
“Rousey didn’t prepare properly for a southpaw,” Florian said. “I don’t know if it was lack of execution. I don’t know if it was her coaching not bringing her up to speed. I wouldn’t believe that. I would assume Edmund would prepare her for such an opponent. The way she went out there, it seemed like she really didn’t know what to do against a southpaw. It looked like she just didn’t do her homework.”
Florian was also critical of Tarverdyan’s coaching in the corner after a bad first round for Rousey.
“I just didn’t like what he said after the first round. I don’t like telling a fighter that they’re doing a great job when they’re not doing a great job. I think you need to be more real with your fighter.”
Florian’s comments were echoed by UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, who stated on his podcast that he likes Tarverdyan, and indeed has even had him on his show alongside Rousey, but nevertheless he felt the coach’s advice in-between rounds was a mistake.
“I don’t not like what he said in the corner,” Rogan said on Sunday during a special episode of his podcast with Dana White. “He wasn’t honest with her, he told her she did great, he was like, ‘great round, champ, everything’s great’. I mean, maybe he was trying to psychologically pump her up, but that’s not what she needed. She needed technical advice. She needed someone to tell her what she was doing wrong and how to correct it.”
Rogan went on to suggest that perhaps Tarverydyan wasn’t the right person to give her the advice she needed in this particular instance, stating that, “He is more of a boxing coach than he is an overall MMA coach.”
Given that the main criticism stemming from the fight is that Rousey’s boxing seemed sub-par, these comments have got to sting for Tarverdyan who’d already come in for harsh words from Rousey’s mother AnnMaria De Mars in the weeks leading up to the fight when she went as far as to say that she hated him and believed that he was disrespectful to the women he trained at his Glendale Fight Club gym in L.A.
To add to his woes it also emerged in the days prior to UFC 193 that Tarverdyan had filed for bankruptcy and had claimed in official forms that he was unemployed which raised eyebrows giving his high-profile coaching role with the sport’s biggest star.
The fallout from Rousey’s KO loss will put a further strain on the relationship between coach and fighter, but at this stage no one is sure whether she’ll continue to remain with the man who’s overseen her entire MMA career to date.
“At the end of the day, Edmond’s a guy who really cares about Ronda and her career and all of that stuff,” Dana White stated on the JRE Podcast. “I think as a team they’ll sit down and try to figure out what went wrong and what needs to be fixed.”
