The London Olympics and the Ghost of Ronda Rousey
Part of Four Days in London.
(Disclosure: For those who aren’t familiar with the blog, I was a dojo level teammate of both Ronda and Kayla.)
It is impossible to know the complete story of any Olympic team, without understanding the events surrounding the members of the previous one. Perhaps for no Olympic team in modern memory is this truer than the 2012 team.
In an interview, Kayla Harrison was recently asked if she was better at judo than Ronda Rousey. This is, well, kind of a stupid question. Kayla Harrison is the greatest American judo player of all time, a two time Olympic and World Champion, and won every major tournament in the world except the Paris Grand Slam. There is a very strong case to be made that Kayla is among the best overall judoka (male or female) in the last twenty years. Ronda was still an excellent A+ level judoka, having won a silver at the world championships and a bronze at the Olympics, but not at the same level. That’s not to say had things gone differently in late 2009, this might have been different.
In 2008 Ronda was in her early 20s. She very well could have had a long career in judo had she not retired at an earlier age than Kayla. Honestly had she not gone into the WWE, she would have been young enough to make a credible comeback in judo. Judoka in middle and upper weight classes can stay competitive going well into their early 30s. That said, it is worth exploring what impact Ronda had on the 2012 Olympic team, even in her absence.
Ronda took a year off after the Beijing Olympics, and I don’t blame her. She had an Olympic medal and was burnt out. Then in late 2009, she went to Japan as part of what was effectively a job offer. In return for competing for the company Komatsu, she would be able to train full time and take home a salary. This arrangement only lasted a few days, when Ronda, still being incredibly burnt out from the sport despite a year off, decided to leave. This resulted in a huge mess since it simultaneously screwed over most of the Americans training and coaching in Japan at the time. When I traveled to Tsukuba University a month later, I was on strict orders around behavior.
Ronda didn’t entirely quit judo though. She did compete in the 2010 world championships and world trials and easily qualified for the team. She went onto compete in Tunisia, where she lost to the world number 2 in overtime and was registered to compete in Brazil that summer ahead of the world championships. As detailed in her book, she was already training MMA at this point and pulled herself off the judo circuit. This led to her competing on the MMA scene, and the rest is history.
Ronda’s presence, and later lack thereof, left a huge impact on the London Olympic team. In the previous quad, no one in the United States could beat her when she was healthy. This meant that while Ronda was still at 63kgs, almost everyone gave that weight class a wide berth. While there were some quality judoka still in the category, such as Kristen Allan and Ashley Martini, if you could move out, you did. This applied to two people specifically: Marti Malloy and Kayla Harrison.
Ronda changed weight classes in 2007, and with it, an opportunity appeared. Kayla Harrison had bulked up from 57kgs to 70kgs to attempt to get away from Ronda a make the 2006 junior world team. Marti Malloy, one of the younger top 57kg players, had a crowded weight class and a significant weight cut. Thus when Ronda moved up to 70s, Kayla decided to move down to get away from her again while Marti decided to take a shot at a higher weight.
This resulted in one of the key clashes of the 2007 Senior National Championships, with Marti taking the win. Kayla, as noted in her book, was unfortunately in terrible emotional condition as a result of abuse during this time, so who would have won had both been in optimal condition remains speculation.
Kayla would compete during the 2007 fall circuit to make the Olympic trials at 63kgs, should the weight class qualify. After having spent years cutting extreme amounts of weight, finally, at the team Christmas party, our coach looked at her said she was moving up. Kayla still wasn’t going to duke it out with Ronda, but instead, move up to 78kgs. The idea was that at 78kgs, the stress of weight cutting would no longer be there, an important factor considering Kayla was going in and out of the hospital during this period.
The impacts reverberated in the upper weight classes as well. Katie Mocco, the former number one at 70kgs, could not beat Ronda. She then decided to move up to 78kgs, which had a momentary opening as Nikki Kubes was away dealing with an injury. (Kubes it should be noted was an excellent judoka in her own right).
By the time the 2008 Olympic trials came around, however, Kayla had largely caught up to Ronda in terms of skill. I remember our coach being asked about this, and why Kayla wasn’t fighting Ronda for a spot in the trials. His reply was simply “It’s Rondas turn”. This was a good call, as Ronda had already experienced the Olympics once (this matters) and had won a silver medal at the world championships the year before. Kayla would go on that year to win the Junior World Championships, the first woman to do so since Ronda four years before.
Kayla has talked about having a “Ronda Complex” where she felt like she had to do everything she could to catch up to Ronda. I think you could largely credit this motivation as one of the reasons Kayla got so good. I don’t think you get Kayla Harrison without Ronda Rousey. While I don’t know the situation as well, I do know that Ronda and Marti Malloy had a similar rivalry growing up in the sport. Marti and Kayla were both on the Olympic medal stand in 2012. Had Ronda stayed through to the London quad, I’m sure she would have been on that stand as well.
Ronda ultimately made the team in London stronger, and the impact of her prior presence on the careers of that team is evident. MMA journalists are certainly welcome to ask who would win between Ronda and Kayla in a judo match. In my opinion: circa 2009, there was a decent chance it could have been Kayla. Circa 2010 and onwards, it wasn’t a question, Kayla wins that. However to talk about that is a waste of time, especially since the interaction between the two and how one played a pivotal role in lifting up the other, is a far better story.
