Now that the most-awaiting fight between UFC women’s bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey and Bethe Correia is finally over, the bantamweight contender has now the time to reflect on what took place in the octagon.
Before the fight took place, Correia said some words that are rather below-the-belt, hoping that Rousey would be somehow intimidated. The Brazilian fighter joked about hoping Rousey wouldn’t “kill herself” after Correia beats her up. For some MMA fighters, this may just be a part of the trash talk being done before the fight, but for Rousey, it has gone way out of line. Rousey’s dad committed suicide when she was a child, so for the reigning bantamweight champ, this is not something to joke about.
As expected, Correia was the one who got beat up by the women’s MMA bantamweight champ. Rousey was able to knock out Correia in just 34 seconds in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. After the fight, Correia was asked if she thought of taking back the statements she said, which Rousey used to fuel her desire to work harder in training and win the fight.
“I don’t regret anything, and everything I said was very sincere. It was my point of view and it was what I believed in. I think I did a great job. The event was wonderful. It wasn’t the result I wanted, but I think that everything I said was something that I thought. I’m a very sincere person and I don’t take back anything that happened. But of course with this fight, I have a lot of lessons that I learned,” Correia said during the post-fight press conference.
Rousey, who now has a record of 12-0, threw a powerful punch on Correia’s temple when the Brazilian contender was along the fence. This punch knocked Correia down in an instant, ending the fight in merely half a minute. When Correia was asked what she thought went wrong, she simply said that it was all just an unfortunate sequence of bad events.
“I started out well. I think she felt my strikes and she tried to grab me, and I defended the takedown. But those things happen. Her hands landed and that’s her merit, and I really felt it. But I thought I was doing the right game, which was to attack, counter-attack, defend her takedowns and hit her. But at that moment I slipped. I got up and she connected a good punch, and that’s what happened,” Correia said.
This is the first time Bethe Correia lost a fight. She has now a record of 9-1.