Ronda Rousey established herself as the best pound-for-pound women's MMA fighter in the world, after finishing top contender Cat Zingano in only 14 seconds.
Yahoo! Sports reported that Rousey's title defense at UFC 184 on February 28, 2015 garnered the record for the fastest victory in a championship match. She upped her MMA record to 11-0 and retained her women's bantamweight title belt. The fastest win in a title fight was formerly held by former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski, with a 15-second knockout against Paul Buentello at UFC 55.
In July 2014, Rousey defeated Alexis Davis in only 16 seconds at UFC 175. On Saturday night, she defeated Zingano via a straight armbar, causing the latter to tap out.
In a YouTube video posted by ZSS OneBro, Zingano started the match aggressively, running out of her corner and executing a flying knee at Rousey. Zingano threw her opponent down but Rousey was the better grappler, and immediately reversed position to get on top. Rousey proceeded to extend Zingano's arm toward her and moved her hips to the right side, applying a lot of pressure on the shoulder joint. Zingano had no choice but to submit.
Rousey said in an ESPN report, "We were actually suspecting she might do something flying at me right away. I've actually been working on that behind arm armbar. Not from that angle, but hey, it works."
Zingano said after the match, She had my arm and I saw her leg. I thought to grab a hold of it and all of a sudden, I was tapping."
Zingano added, "I want to do it again. I just, f---. She did it. She did a great job. I want to do it again."
Rousey's trainer said in the same ESPN report, "Cat went for the kill, and it's always exciting to be in fights like that. Whether it's 10 seconds, five seconds or a minute, it doesn't matter. People don't want to see boring fights. She finishes fights. People want to see finishes and she did it."
Fox Sports reported that Rousey actually offered a rematch against Zingano because she "felt bad for her".
After Zingano tapped on Saturday night, Rousey kneeled in front of her stunned opponent, gave her a hug and said kind words.
Rousey said in the same Fox Sports report, "I said 'I'm happy to do this again anytime,' you know? It's hard to feel like you tested yourself when something like that happens, so I think if we fought again it would be very, very different, just like when me and Miesha Tate fought again."
UFC President Dana White said about the whirlwind fight, "There are very few situations when a fight goes 14 seconds and the crowd is cheering and going crazy, looking at each other with their mouths open -- and everybody knows how awesome Ronda is, but everybody was looking at each other with their mouths open because she was fighting Cat Zingano and this was going to be a tough-ass fight."