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"Top male fighters are wary of facing her." First of all, that's false. Gender stereotypes and attitudes being what they are, he can either look bad for beati

"Top male fighters are wary of facing her." First of all, that's false. Gender stereotypes and attitudes being what they are, he can either look bad for beating up a girl or look bad for getting beat up by a girl. There is no good outcome. Pound for pound, top male fighters are going to be between 50% and 100% stronger than Ronda. Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with.

adventured 11y ago
No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin. I can't believe this is even an issue of debate or misunderstanding on HN. Go to any gym and watch a 5'6", 165 pound guy bench press, and then watch a woman at the same size with the same experience do so. Men can also jump higher and run faster than women at exactly the same physical measurements. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683 "Strength and muscle characteristics were examined in biceps brachii and vastus lateralis of eight men and eight women. Measurements included motor unit number, size and activation and voluntary strength of the elbow flexors and knee extensors. Fiber areas and type were determined from needle biopsies and muscle areas by computerized tomographical scanning. The women were approximately 52% and 66% as strong as the men in the upper and lower body respectively. The men were also stronger relative to lean body mass." http://www.quora.com/Are-men-generally-physically-stronger-than-women http://www.quora.com/Are-men-generally-physically-stronger-t...
- balls187 11y ago
  > No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin. This is indisputable. However, strength only in one factor, and there are many that contribute to the success in an MMA fight. There are also key differences in how you measure strength and how that matters in a fight. Daniel Cormier has significantly higher stats around olympic lifts, and routinely manhandles his opponents. Against former champion Jon Jones, however, Jones matched him, and was able to out wrestle the former olympian. Saying it more plainly, just because men are naturally stronger than women, doesn't mean that men are naturally better fighters.
  - adventured 11y ago
    Rousey's best shot against a comparably sized male fighter, would be an armbar. She is a relatively poor striker. It's why there's even a discussion to be had about her beating male fighters her size - her specialty around armbars. It's pretty obviously understood what comparable male fighters would do to women fighters like Bethe Correia. Everything else would give Rousey a lot of problems. Her ability to grapple with a comparable top-ranked male fighter that is even just 1/3 stronger would be very problematic.
    - petegrif 11y ago
      She would have no chance of getting a male fighter to tap out with an armbar. All male fighters know how to defend against an armbar and they are so much stronger she'd never keep one on against a male opponent.
      - vehementi 11y ago
        Really, an armbar is just a contest of strength and being 50%-100% stronger lets you brute force out of it?
        petegrif 11y ago
        No. It isn't just a 'contest of strength.' Leverage is very important which is why men can tap out other men. But a certain amount of strength can overcome mechanical advantage and men have that much more strength.
      - chrisherring 11y ago
        Getting a pro male fighter in an armbar would be unlikely for Rousey however if she got in position I wouldn't bet against her. An armbar works on the principle of leverage, in this case the bicep muscle vs the same muscles used in a deadlift. If Rousey had a male fighter in an armbar the strength difference is not going to be the deciding factor. Also all fighters know how to defend an armbar, RNC, triangle etc yet they still tap to them.
tedunangst 11y ago
A comparison of Olympic weightlifting records in comparable weight classes suggests men are around 30% stronger at the same weight.
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
> Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with. No, a 180 pound man would absolutely destroy a 180 woman. It's just the way it is. To a large extent it's because the only weight in your body that's doing 'work' are your muscles, and women biologically have higher body fat percentages than men, including in top trained athletes in weight-division based sports. That difference can be quite substantial depending on the sport and the level. For normal people the average difference is about 11% (and you wouldn't see it, either, a man at 12% bodyfat looks very similar to a woman at say 18 or 20%) Meaning for a say a 180 pound individual at a 10% differential in bodyfat percentage, we're looking at a difference of 18 pounds of muscle. That's multiple weight divisions, a huge difference in division based sports like most martial arts. In other words you can have more muscle while being the same weight. A lot of this has to do with different steroid hormonal levels, like testosterone, and genetics, which dictate the ability and propensity to build muscle and store fat, which differ quite significantly between sexes. Beyond that there are differences in hand-eye coordination between men and women, which I don't know exist for top athletes (although looking at women in sports like football or boxing that I know pretty well, it's often considerably worse with all due respect, so I'd assume technically there is a difference, too in general, although there are exceptions), and then there's aerobic fitness related things where men have better oxygen uptake, bodyweight adjusted, too, more hemoglobin mass etc. But yeah outside of sports, a lot of it is weight based. You simply won't find guys the size of Valuev or Anthony Joshua in the opposite gender. Anyway the whole 'beat a man' thing with Ronda is just marketing. The fact we're talking about this is exactly what it gets her: a ton of exposure even on platforms totally non-fighting related. Everyone within their own sport knows how big the gap is. She's sparred with tons of guys and has experienced getting toyed with. And that is true for many other sports. Some women have tried in various sports, tennis being the most common one, where you ended up with the nr 1 woman in the world not being able to win a single set against her brother who plays for recreation at college level. In fighting we've had Dutch pride Lucia Rijker, one of the greatest female fighters of all time, undefeated, actually trains Ronda in her striking, and she got knocked out unconscious by a complete and utter nobody easily and quickly, she never tried again.
- 0xFFC 11y ago

adventured 11y ago

No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin. I can't believe this is even an issue of debate or misunderstanding on HN. Go to any gym and watch a 5'6", 165 pound guy bench press, and then watch a woman at the same size with the same experience do so. Men can also jump higher and run faster than women at exactly the same physical measurements. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8477683 "Strength and muscle characteristics were examined in biceps brachii and vastus lateralis of eight men and eight women. Measurements included motor unit number, size and activation and voluntary strength of the elbow flexors and knee extensors. Fiber areas and type were determined from needle biopsies and muscle areas by computerized tomographical scanning. The women were approximately 52% and 66% as strong as the men in the upper and lower body respectively. The men were also stronger relative to lean body mass." http://www.quora.com/Are-men-generally-physically-stronger-than-women http://www.quora.com/Are-men-generally-physically-stronger-t...

balls187 11y ago
> No, men are stronger at the exact same weight than women are, by a significant margin. This is indisputable. However, strength only in one factor, and there are many that contribute to the success in an MMA fight. There are also key differences in how you measure strength and how that matters in a fight. Daniel Cormier has significantly higher stats around olympic lifts, and routinely manhandles his opponents. Against former champion Jon Jones, however, Jones matched him, and was able to out wrestle the former olympian. Saying it more plainly, just because men are naturally stronger than women, doesn't mean that men are naturally better fighters.
- adventured 11y ago
  Rousey's best shot against a comparably sized male fighter, would be an armbar. She is a relatively poor striker. It's why there's even a discussion to be had about her beating male fighters her size - her specialty around armbars. It's pretty obviously understood what comparable male fighters would do to women fighters like Bethe Correia. Everything else would give Rousey a lot of problems. Her ability to grapple with a comparable top-ranked male fighter that is even just 1/3 stronger would be very problematic.
  - petegrif 11y ago
    She would have no chance of getting a male fighter to tap out with an armbar. All male fighters know how to defend against an armbar and they are so much stronger she'd never keep one on against a male opponent.
    - vehementi 11y ago
      Really, an armbar is just a contest of strength and being 50%-100% stronger lets you brute force out of it?
      - petegrif 11y ago
        No. It isn't just a 'contest of strength.' Leverage is very important which is why men can tap out other men. But a certain amount of strength can overcome mechanical advantage and men have that much more strength.
    - chrisherring 11y ago
      Getting a pro male fighter in an armbar would be unlikely for Rousey however if she got in position I wouldn't bet against her. An armbar works on the principle of leverage, in this case the bicep muscle vs the same muscles used in a deadlift. If Rousey had a male fighter in an armbar the strength difference is not going to be the deciding factor. Also all fighters know how to defend an armbar, RNC, triangle etc yet they still tap to them.

tedunangst 11y ago

A comparison of Olympic weightlifting records in comparable weight classes suggests men are around 30% stronger at the same weight.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

> Why? I thought the whole reason men tend to be stronger is that we're generally physically larger. As in more pounds of muscle to be strong with. No, a 180 pound man would absolutely destroy a 180 woman. It's just the way it is. To a large extent it's because the only weight in your body that's doing 'work' are your muscles, and women biologically have higher body fat percentages than men, including in top trained athletes in weight-division based sports. That difference can be quite substantial depending on the sport and the level. For normal people the average difference is about 11% (and you wouldn't see it, either, a man at 12% bodyfat looks very similar to a woman at say 18 or 20%) Meaning for a say a 180 pound individual at a 10% differential in bodyfat percentage, we're looking at a difference of 18 pounds of muscle. That's multiple weight divisions, a huge difference in division based sports like most martial arts. In other words you can have more muscle while being the same weight. A lot of this has to do with different steroid hormonal levels, like testosterone, and genetics, which dictate the ability and propensity to build muscle and store fat, which differ quite significantly between sexes. Beyond that there are differences in hand-eye coordination between men and women, which I don't know exist for top athletes (although looking at women in sports like football or boxing that I know pretty well, it's often considerably worse with all due respect, so I'd assume technically there is a difference, too in general, although there are exceptions), and then there's aerobic fitness related things where men have better oxygen uptake, bodyweight adjusted, too, more hemoglobin mass etc. But yeah outside of sports, a lot of it is weight based. You simply won't find guys the size of Valuev or Anthony Joshua in the opposite gender. Anyway the whole 'beat a man' thing with Ronda is just marketing. The fact we're talking about this is exactly what it gets her: a ton of exposure even on platforms totally non-fighting related. Everyone within their own sport knows how big the gap is. She's sparred with tons of guys and has experienced getting toyed with. And that is true for many other sports. Some women have tried in various sports, tennis being the most common one, where you ended up with the nr 1 woman in the world not being able to win a single set against her brother who plays for recreation at college level. In fighting we've had Dutch pride Lucia Rijker, one of the greatest female fighters of all time, undefeated, actually trains Ronda in her striking, and she got knocked out unconscious by a complete and utter nobody easily and quickly, she never tried again.

0xFFC 11y ago