UFC 193: Ronda Rousey takes next act to Australia

Is Ronda Rousey's "Buster Douglas moment" on the way?

The UFC women's bantamweight champion seems an unstoppable force. Rousey (12-0), the biggest star in mixed martial arts, has become a household name in 2015, one of the most popular athletes during a year in which women in sports have commanded the spotlight like never before.

Rousey's next act takes her to Melbourne, Australia, where she defends her championship in the main event of Saturday's UFC 193 against former world boxing champion Holly Holm (9-0) of Albuquerque, N.M. The event will be held at the 70,000-seat Etihad Stadium, where the UFC hopes to break its single-event attendance record of 55,724, set in at UFC 129 in Toronto on April 30, 2011.

But while Rousey, of Venice, Calif., seems as focused as ever, signs of the strains of unprecedented MMA stardom have come to light.

A few weeks back, Rousey's mother, Dr. Ann Maria DeMars, a former world judo champion, publicly lashed out at Rousey's head coach, Edmond Tarverdyan of Glendale, Calif., calling him a "bad coach" and declaring "I would run him over with my car if there wasn't a law against it."

For his part, Tarverdyan, head of the Glendale Fighting Club, made news by filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and claiming he made no income for the three-year period in which Rousey, his main claim to fame, rocketed to stardom.

Then, during a recent media teleconference promoting UFC 193, Rousey hung up when the first question involved her relationship with UFC heavyweight Travis Browne, who had been publicly accused of domestic violence in a previous relationship (an independent investigation commissioned by the UFC determined the evidence to be inconclusive, and Browne has not been charged).

While Rousey demurred from speaking about the controversy swirling around her, she did admit she has felt under an unusual amount of pressure. But she also says pressure situations bring out her best.

"That's the environment I do the best in," Rousey said at a recent media event. "I know if me and Holly were fighting alone in some high school gym, I wouldn't do nearly as well as if we had 70,000 people and all that pressure and cameras. I don't get scared of how nervous I get and all the pressure and attention and the crowds and everything because I know in my heart that's when I do best."

So with Rousey often being called a female Mike Tyson, is she being set up for a similar fall? Tyson was combat sports' biggest attraction when he went to Japan in 1990 and lost to Buster Douglas, a 42-1 underdog, at the Tokyo Dome.

Of course, this could be where all the speculation ends, because Holm, like Douglas, is also a major underdog. As a three-weight-class champ who compiled a pro boxing record of 33-2-3, Holm figures to have a fighting chance against Rousey in the standup.

But Holm is also a relative newbie to mixed martial arts, having made the full-time switch just two years ago. While she has rarely been threatened in the cage, she has never faced anyone nearly on the level of Rousey. So most feel that barring a lucky punch, Rousey should be able to use her Olympic medalist-level judo game to take Holm down at will.

For her part, though, Holm said she is not going to let Rousey -- who has won her past three title defenses in 16 seconds, 14, and 34 -- get into her head.

"I don't want to go into the fight thinking, 'She's going to come out with this, so I'm going to throw this,'" Holm said. "A fight is unpredictable. That's why people love to watch fights. You don't know what's going to happen. So, I want to go in with kind of an open-ended plan and be able to adjust along the way."

UFC 193 marks the first event in company history with two women's title fights. In the co-feature bout, strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk (10-0) of Olsztyn, Poland, challenges unheralded Valerie Letourneau (8-3) of Montreal. A well-rounded striker, Jedrzejczyk is making the second defense of her 115-pound title against an opponent who is 3-0 since entering the UFC.