5. Ronda Rousey
Rousey, Sherdog's fourth greatest female fighter pound-for-pound, comes in only one spot lower here, and received two first-place votes. As with previous inductee Royce Gracie, where to rank her is purely a matter of criteria since, much like Gracie for the sport overall, Rousey was a vital pioneer for women in MMA. Rousey was fighting the best challengers in the entire world and annihilating them via grappling, often inside of a minute, usually by armbar. Her opponents knew what was coming but were powerless to stop it for even a minute. That's mind-blowing and something that no other fighter on here can boast of. On the flipside, WMMA in Rousey's heyday was a pale shadow of what it is now, much like MMA evolved tremendously since Royce's years in the UFC.
Physically, Rousey was a tremendous specimen of overwhelming raw strength, blistering speed and insane athleticism, a rare athlete in any sport, and one that tore through opponents like a hurricane. Add to that her world-class judo and a submission game that was limited in scope but almost perfect in those areas, and for many years, female bantamweights simply had no answer. Among notable grapplers she defeated, Rousey armbarred the much bigger, future great Julia Budd in just 39 seconds, armbarred Sarah Kaufman in 54 seconds, needed a whopping 4:49 to armbar future Bellator champion Liz Carmouche, stopped Alexis Davis in 16 seconds with a fantastic hip toss and ground-and-pound, cut down her cage time to just 14 seconds for a straight armbar of then-undefeated Cat Zingano, and armbarred bitter rival Miesha Tate twice, once going all the way to the third round, which was seen as a moral victory for Tate despite being thoroughly dominated the whole time. But as with Gracie, the rest of the division eventually caught up with Rousey, and it was of all people a longtime striker, Holly Holm, who dethroned her. And yet, despite not having fought in MMA for over six years, Rousey is still the women’s divisions’ greatest grappler, and had a memorable run of dominance.
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