We’ve been tracking the allegation that Ronda Rousey’s 17-second armbar submission victory over Gina Carano from this past Saturday night (May 16) was agreed upon in advance (aka fixed). That’s both because it seems to be a fairly common one in pro wrestling circles, and because one of the people loudly making the claim is a prominent pro wrestling figure a lot of fans enjoy, and that almost every fan has an opinion of.
But another well-known pro wrestling figure, and one with a ton of experience
in the mixed martial arts business, had a very different view. Shayna Baszler says she’ll go into more technical detail about the fight and why she’s sure it wasn’t a work in a future YouTube video, but for now offered this:
If you want to know how fast the memory of MMA fans gets erased, 17 seconds isn’t even her fastest win and people think it was worked, lol. What about her :14 win over Zigano? Or her :16 win over Davis? Or her other 5 wins under :30? Or her 9 total wins under a minute?
Baszler is, of course, a long-time friend and training partner of Rousey’s, and the person she ended her WWE run working with. She’s not unbiased. But in MMA circles, it was easy to find knowledgable people with similar takes (who didn’t pick a fight with Corny):
As much as I find the idea of this or any fight being fixed intriguing, I tend to think it would be pretty impossible to keep something like that a secret in the modern world. Either through incompetence or someone’s inability to stay quiet, word would get out. Having one retired former star score a fast, non-competitive win over another retired former star doesn’t seem worth the risk (in fact, it’s not clear why any of the promoters who’ve sold this as the first of many MMA cards would go along with it, as it does nothing to sell future events). Plus, it’s not like there wasn’t plenty to criticize about the event Jake Paul and Netflix put on this past weekend, such as the fact the main event wasn’t the only easy-to-predict mismatch on the card.
That probably won’t stop this allegation from following Rousey/Carano though, at least in the short term. What’s your take on the fight’s validity or the event it closed, Cagesiders?
