UFC 184

UFC 184: Rousey vs. Zingano was a mixed martial arts event held on February 28, 2015 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

Background

A UFC Middleweight Championship bout between Chris Weidman and Vitor Belfort was expected to serve as the event headliner. The much delayed pairing was previously scheduled to take place at UFC 173 and also at UFC 181. However, on January 30, the UFC announced that Weidman had pulled out of the bout, citing an injury he sustained in training. Subsequently, a UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship bout between current champion Ronda Rousey and top contender Cat Zingano was promoted to the main event. Belfort was offered an interim title fight first against Lyoto Machida and then Gegard Mousasi as a replacement for Weidman, but he declined and stated that he would only fight for the full title.

Neil Magny was briefly linked to a bout with Josh Koscheck at the event. However, Magny was pulled from the fight in favor of a bout with Kiichi Kunimoto at UFC Fight Night 60. Koscheck faced Jake Ellenberger instead.

Ultimate Fighting Championship

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a mixed martial arts promotion company. It is the largest in the world and features most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport. Based in the United States, the UFC produces events worldwide that showcase ten weight divisions and abide by the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. The UFC has held over 300 events to date. Dana White serves as the president of the UFC while brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta control the UFC's parent company, Zuffa, LLC.

The first Ultimate Fighting Championship event was held on November 12, 1993 at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. The purpose of the early Ultimate Fighting Championship competitions were to identify the most effective martial art in a fight, with minimal rules, between competitors of different fighting disciplines, including boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Sambo, wrestling, Muay Thai, karate, judo, and other styles. In subsequent competitions, fighters began adopting effective techniques from more than one discipline, which indirectly helped create an entirely separate style of fighting known as present-day mixed martial arts.

Ronda Rousey

Ronda Jean Rousey (/ˈraʊzi/ born February 1, 1987) is an American mixed martial artist, judoka, and actress. She is the former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, as well as the last Strikeforce Women's Bantamweight Champion. She has won eleven of her fights in the first round, nine of them by armbar. Rousey was the first U.S. woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo (Bronze) at the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Rousey trains under Gokor Chivichyan of the Hayastan MMA Academy, and Edmond Tarverdyan of the Glendale Fighting Club. In 2015, she was the third most searched person on Google.

As of December 2015, Rousey is ranked the #1 female bantamweight fighter in the world according to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and #2 by Sherdog and Fight Matrix. Sherdog lists her as the #3 Pound for Pound Women's MMA fighter in the world, while ESPN and Fight Matrix list her #4 female Pound for Pound fighter.

In May 2015, two magazines ranked Rousey as the most "dominant" active athlete. Rousey was voted on an ESPN poll as the Best Female Athlete Ever. In September 2015, she claimed that she is currently the UFC's highest paid fighter, male or female. Rousey's first feature film role was the 2014 film The Expendables 3. In 2015, she had roles in the films Furious 7 and Entourage.

Holly Holm

Holly Holm (born October 17, 1981) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bantamweight division. She is the current UFC Bantamweight Champion. Holm is also a former professional boxer and kickboxer. She was a multiple-time world champion in boxing, defending her titles 18 times in three weight classes, and was a two-time Ring magazine fighter of the year (2005, 2006).

Her most notable win in mixed martial arts (MMA) occurred at UFC 193, in front of a record-breaking crowd for a UFC event (56,214 people) in Melbourne, when she captured the bantamweight title and gave Ronda Rousey her first loss in the sport. The fight is considered one of the biggest upsets in the history of sports.

Holm is the first person to win championships in both boxing and mixed martial arts. She is the consensus #1 female bantamweight fighter in the world. Fight Matrix also lists her as the #1 pound-for-pound female fighter in the world, while Sherdog lists her at #2, and ESPN at #3. Holm is the only female fighter to be listed in Sports Illustrated's mixed gender pound-for-pound ranking at #10. UFC fighter and teammate Jon Jones has called Holm the greatest female athlete in the history of combat sports. Outside of MMA, she appears in the 2016 feature film Fight Valley.

Cat Zingano

Cathilee Deborah "Cat" Zingano (née Albert; born July 1, 1982) is an American mixed martial artist who competes in the UFC. On April 13, 2013, she became the first woman to win a UFC fight by technical knockout.

Zingano is currently the #5-ranked pound-for-pound female MMA fighter in the world by MMARising.com and the #3-ranked 135-pound female fighter according to the Unified Women's MMA Rankings. As of November 2015, she is the #3 contender in official UFC women's bantamweight rankings.

Early life

Zingano began her career in combat sports with wrestling at age 12. She attended high school in Boulder, Colorado, where she got involved with combat sports after joining the wrestling team. She eventually became part of both the University of the Cumberlands (2001) and MacMurray College women's wrestling teams and became a 4-time All-American and National Champion.

In 2007 Zingano discovered Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ), shortly after she started to compete and won many tournaments including: the World Championships (Mundials) in Los Angeles, and the Rio de Janeiro State Championships in Brazil, along with several State titles in Colorado.