The slow-starter tag is being misunderstood here. In fact, Cat misunderstood it herself. The fact is, she's started out several fights with this kamikaze shit, so she's not a "slow starter" in that sense at all. She's far from overly cautious or timid. She DOES fall behind in fights though (Nunes fight is a perfect example), which is what people meant.
So if she really thought that people meant that she's passive or too conservative or something like that, she fucked her self. She fucked herself by trying to prove something wrong that wasn't even being said about her.
Anyway---yeah, stupid gameplan. A move like that has a high chance of ending up in a wild scramble, and Ronda loves nothing better than that on the ground. She's full of horrifying bionic newaza off scrambles and Cat should have realized that.