Sherdog’s Top 10: Successful Olympic Crossovers

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2. Ronda Rousey

Rousey should require no introduction for today’s fans. Perhaps more than any other fighter on this list, Rousey’s Olympic credentials have been a fundamental component of promoters’ strategies in selling her to the masses, and judging by the reaction, that sale has been more successful than its creators’ wildest dreams.

A world junior champion in 2004, Rousey was the youngest judo competitor at the 2004 Olympics. Although she lost her opening-round matchup, it was only the beginning of a successful international career. Moving up to 70 kilograms, Rousey took second at the 2007 world championships and capped off her competitive judo run with a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics. It made Rousey the first American woman to medal in judo in the 16-year history of the sport at the Olympics.

After a two-year break, Rousey reemerged as a mixed martial artist in August 2010, winning her three amateur fights by armbar, all in less than a minute. Turning pro in March 2011, it took Rousey less than a year to accumulate four professional victories, all by armbar against respectable competition, and talk her way into a title fight against reigning Strikeforce champion Miesha Tate. One title fight in Strikeforce followed before the Ultimate Fighting Championship absorbed the division, and Rousey now has four defenses of her UFC championship under her belt. Only once has an opponent dragged her out of the first round, and Rousey has finished every single one of her victories.

Still only 27 years of age, Rousey is already one of the greatest female fighters of all-time, and a few more defenses of her title could cement her as the apex to which all future competitors aspire.

Number 1 » Dan Henderson