The problem with trash-talking in mixed martial arts is that eventually you have to step into the Octagon and live up to your words, and in this article we’ll look back at 10 fights where outspoken UFC fighters proved to be all bark and no bite.
Bethe Correia vs. Ronda Rousey
From early in her UFC career, Bethe Correia set her sights on trash-talking her way into a fight with bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, and after repeatedly taunting her after defeating ‘Rowdy’s’ teammates, Jessamyn Duke and Shayna Baszler, she succeeded.
Correia then stepped up her trash-talking to a whole new level in the pre-fight build-up.
“I want to knock her out, show to everyone that she is a lie. She wants to stand up with me, let’s see. I want to humiliate her and show the word she has no MMA,” Correia told Combate at the time.
However, in the same interview, Correia then crossed the line in many people’s eye by getting deeply personal about Rousey’s mental health.
“She is not mentally healthy, she needs to take care of herself. She is winning, so everybody is around her cheering her up, but when she realizes she is not everything that she believes she is, I don’t know what might happen. I hope she does not kill herself later on.”
Rousey was infuriated by her rival’s comments, believing them to be a below-the-belt reference to her father’s death from suicide when she was just a young child.
Correia continued to embrace her ‘bad girl’ role in the fight however, and at the pre-fight staredowns in her native Brazil, she taunted the champion, repeatedly telling her, “don’t cry.”
Rousey had vowed to get payback in the Octagon for everything Correia had said about her and she lived up to her word, humiliating Correia by KO’ing her in just 34 seconds, before cooly walking past her still floored opponent and telling her, “don’t cry.”
