Official Women's Division Discussion #25

[Rizz]

Veronica Macedo should be more competitive at 125 lbs
because of the fact in her lone UFC outing back in 2016
she struggled badly against Ashlee Evans-Smith do to the
fact she gave up 5 inches up front and at least 15 lbs on
fight night in a fight that was not even close.

The funny thing is that Ashlee is also going down to 125. I don't know if she will make weight but she has a fight booked at that weight. She does look noticeably smaller though.

 

[MajorTB]

The funny thing is that Ashlee is also going down to 125. I don't know if she will make weight but she has a fight booked at that weight. She does look noticeably smaller though.

Until Ashlee weighs 126 pounds or less on a scale.. I firmly believe she can't make that weight.

 

[Dsfdandan]

And if she does make the weight, she’s gonna look like Letourneau at 115

Look how much bigger she is than Herrig, who isn’t a small 115er

 

[executionermma]

Juarez is good. Threw some excellent teeps, leg kicks, good punches & even some spinning back fists. She was game & hung in there to the end.

I scored it for Lipski & the judges agreed - unanimous decision. Lipski was better at winning the clinches, throwing meaningful hard punches, going for submissions, hurt Juarez a few times (knocked her down at least once), controlled the cage and pace. She continues to impress.

I have exactly the same opinion about the fight, but i have to disagree with you about her being impressive there.

I expected more of her, she certainly won but before that fight i had her in my top 5 FLWs, not anymore, also wasn't aggressive enough to keep the "Violence Queen" thing going on.
She was technical, yeah, sure, but that's not what everyone wanted from her, the hype with 5 or 6 fights in KSW all won by stoppages was too much and got derailed imo. She got a lot of promotion and maybe after that fight she just won't, the fight was much less high paced than i thought it would be.. Almost boring

I honestly have no idea whatsoever why people pay to see Cyborg eventing (<- not going to even say main-eventing) outside some weird fetish thing about male on female violence cause that is pretty much the closest thing one can get on that front legally. I know a bunch on the heavies seem to pretend to be her fans cause they hate "WMMA", but... fuck this shit. Human cock-fighting at its worst.

And my plan for the fights went wrong badly - fell asleep accidentally and woke up for the Cyborg mauling, were the two other fights worthy? At least Yoder/Dern was close?

Each to their own, I guess. But I am genuinely curious as to why? I mean sure, there is the Violence that really is not there for other fighters booked for the women's divisions, but she's hardly technical and I get nothing out of her bull-rushing girls who stand no chance of survival with her winged strengthpunches. Maybe I am biased and do not see something that "is there", but outside of novelty value/circus sideshow, she really brings nothing into the octagon for me (trying to write this as neutrally as I can, he he). At least if the booking was correct and it would really be a fight instead of a "fight", there would be sport-based interest, but now we don't even get that (except the Holm fight, which went the distance, quite tellingly).

Anyway

Not sure who you are watching but in the last 3~ years she doesn't "bull-rush" at all, she fights with intelligent footwork and is composed with her striking, actually she is one of the best fighters at WMMA when it comes to skill, i've no doubt about it, i couldn't see any other girl winning rounds against Baars at MT for example. It's always fun to see one of the best fighting, and the lack of competition argument just isn't there anymore. Yana and Holm are big 135ers and good fighters. Evinger and Smith were very undersized but are OK wins too.

yeah but better to see it in Brazil when both have time to prepare, rather than in July when Nunes would have less than two months to prepare after facing Pennington.

If Cyborg faces Nunes in Rio, she will have about 2 months to prepare too, double standards huh

Fundamentals and game planning can be learnt, Nunes put things together in less than 1 year under ATT.

But speed is gifted, Pena has a much higher ceiling than Vieira.



Are you judging fighters only by their latest fight? I expect better from sherdogers in wmma thread.

Pena underestimated Shev‘s grappling skills and she paid the price. Despite the loss, she avoided Shev‘s counter strikes and controlled the clinch most of time. Pena's performance against Cat is more impressive than Vieira's. She not only defend Cat's top game effetively and also controlled Cat on the ground much better than Vieira.

I'm not impressed by Vieira's performance against Cat at all. Cat has no striking skills and has lost all her explosiveness, yet she still give Vieira trouble on feet in round 3. Shev would lit her up like a chrismas tree. On the ground Vieira's GnP is Mcmann-level weak, and she didn't try to set up any submission move other than arm triangle choke.

Vieira fought injured and Cat landed a big knee there R3, Shev? They're 2 divisions apart size-wise, she could easily get outgrappled, Vieira is not only a huge 135er but a very strong too, it matters, a lot.

Being real i think Pena is by far one of the most overrated fighters in WMMA, i don't think she would beat anyone in top 5, it being Reneau, Holm, Vieira, Raquel or Nunes.. Loses to them all, against Vieira she would look reaal tiny and she has holes in her grappling game. Higher ceiling? Not at 135. She's older, just became a mom (affects fighters careers, look to Yana striking at young age, she was much quicker) and is much smaller.

 

[awiv]

it's a tricky ranking, since a lot of fighters have unlisted weight so you have to compare their opponents weight-classes and try to find what they fought at. many of these women have beat up on FW/BWs

I also limit mine to at least 2 pro fights in a row at the extreme weightclasses, so bazsler and dandolis do not count as of yet

Cindy just fought a few weeks back at 155. Believe that is two fights at that weight.

 

[aerius]

Not sure who you are watching but in the last 3~ years she doesn't "bull-rush" at all, she fights with intelligent footwork and is composed with her striking, actually she is one of the best fighters at WMMA when it comes to skill, i've no doubt about it, i couldn't see any other girl winning rounds against Baars at MT for example. It's always fun to see one of the best fighting, and the lack of competition argument just isn't there anymore. Yana and Holm are big 135ers and good fighters. Evinger and Smith were very undersized but are OK wins too.

1) Did you see her fight against Evinger? Kept trying to rush in with a hard right hand and either jammed herself or missed entirely half the time.

2) Both Shevchenko sisters along with de Randamie would all take rounds against Baars and likely win the fight outright. I don't how much of Baars' career you've followed, but she's quite susceptible to getting face punched, if you watch her fight against Jindrova for instance she gets hit over & over again with the overhand right and counter left hook. She also had a number of kicks caught and got dumped several times. In MT rules, Antonina and Valentina would have the boxing & clinch advantage. Baars and de Randamie are close enough skill wise, but de Randamie has a strength & power advantage.

3) Yana is not a good fighter. If you can watch her fights & training videos and tell me that she has good form & fundamentals, you're either lying or don't know what you're talking about. Her punching mechanics need a lot of work as do her kicks, she doesn't pivot on her base foot half the time and fails to open up her hips to get power on her kicks. She's essentially lifting her leg into the kicks through a wide arc which loses a lot of speed & power. Holly has been discussed enough times so I'm not going into it again.

 

[Eater of Souls]

1) Did you see her fight against Evinger? Kept trying to rush in with a hard right hand and either jammed herself or missed entirely half the time.

2) Both Shevchenko sisters along with de Randamie would all take rounds against Baars and likely win the fight outright. I don't how much of Baars' career you've followed, but she's quite susceptible to getting face punched, if you watch her fight against Jindrova for instance she gets hit over & over again with the overhand right and counter left hook. She also had a number of kicks caught and got dumped several times. In MT rules, Antonina and Valentina would have the boxing & clinch advantage. Baars and de Randamie are close enough skill wise, but de Randamie has a strength & power advantage.

3) Yana is not a good fighter. If you can watch her fights & training videos and tell me that she has good form & fundamentals, you're either lying or don't know what you're talking about. Her punching mechanics need a lot of work as do her kicks, she doesn't pivot on her base foot half the time and fails to open up her hips to get power on her kicks. She's essentially lifting her leg into the kicks through a wide arc which loses a lot of speed & power. Holly has been discussed enough times so I'm not going into it again.

Baars is a Dutch kickboxer, but a lot of people (no, not you, obviously) seem to not know the difference. The rules are different. Baars has only a handful of fights under proper MT rules and her clinch game is weak as hell. If it were better, Cyborg would not have stolen a round against her.

Yana, like all of the women at JW, has shit fundamentals. Hell, Holly does not even know how to stand properly (and like you, I am tired of pointing this out, we have discussed it ad nauseam.)

Out of curiosity, do you see any reason for so many people to not know how to throw a god damn round kick? And by this I mean pivot off the correct part of the foot?

 

[Dsfdandan]

Who is the better striker of the Shevchenko sisters?

 

[awiv]

Most of the weekend pro results posted - awaiting a few from Brazil. Amateurs as usual takes a while.

https://wombatsports.wordpress.com/upcoming-fights/

Also of note, Kayla Hracho is back in the WCFL strawweight tournament - fills the open spot in the semi-finals June 2nd in Tampa. She fought in Panama over the weekend and won by rear naked choke.

 

[awiv]

Baars is a Dutch kickboxer, but a lot of people (no, not you, obviously) seem to not know the difference. The rules are different. Baars has only a handful of fights under proper MT rules and her clinch game is weak as hell. If it were better, Cyborg would not have stolen a round against her.

Yana, like all of the women at JW, has shit fundamentals. Hell, Holly does not even know how to stand properly (and like you, I am tired of pointing this out, we have discussed it ad nauseam.)

Out of curiosity, do you see any reason for so many people to not know how to throw a god damn round kick? And by this I mean pivot off the correct part of the foot?

Agree. A big thing is kickboxing and Muay Thai have different rule sets. Baars is better in a kickboxing rule set, and Bellator kickboxing is definitely a better one for her. Tiffany Van Soest has had ber hands full at Glory kickboxing I feel because she is a better Muay Thai competitor.

Who is the better striker of the Shevchenko sisters?

Both are great strikers and won world titles in Muay Thai and kickboxing. Valentina has more experience, but Antonia isn't far behind and has been doing Muay Thai fights more often. Tough call. Antonia by the looks of it will be fighting at 135 in MMA. Won't be surprised if she fights for LFA in the next few months.

 

[aerius]

Out of curiosity, do you see any reason for so many people to not know how to throw a god damn round kick? And by this I mean pivot off the correct part of the foot?

That's a good question, I have some theories but I can't say I have an answer. I think a big part of it is that MMA kicking is heavily influenced by the Brazilian style of kickboxing which was made famous by the Chute Boxe fighters. Generally speaking they didn't really pivot when kicking, rather, they'd step, turn, and plant their lead foot out to the side to load & open the hips then whip the kicking leg through. Bas Rutten teaches this method as well. I think where the problem starts is some details got lost when everyone else started copying their kicks; they don't turn the foot out properly when stepping into the kick so they lose the power from the hips, they try to throw straight from the stance with no step and get the angle wrong, and so on. So for a while we had fighters from a TKD background like Anthony Pettis and the original Chute Boxe guys (Shogun) being the ones with the best round kicks.

I think a good round kick, especially a Thai style one is just something that's not well understood in MMA. Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu has been fighting in Thailand for years and it was only recently that she had her "ah-ha!" moment with round kicks. She wrote a really nice article about it. http://8limbs.us/muay-thai-thailand/golden-kick-how-to-improve-your-thai-kick Not surprisingly, both Shevchenko sisters throw their kicks that way, as do Pettis and David Teymur on the men's side.

 

[executionermma]

1) Did you see her fight against Evinger? Kept trying to rush in with a hard right hand and either jammed herself or missed entirely half the time.

2) Both Shevchenko sisters along with de Randamie would all take rounds against Baars and likely win the fight outright. I don't how much of Baars' career you've followed, but she's quite susceptible to getting face punched, if you watch her fight against Jindrova for instance she gets hit over & over again with the overhand right and counter left hook. She also had a number of kicks caught and got dumped several times. In MT rules, Antonina and Valentina would have the boxing & clinch advantage. Baars and de Randamie are close enough skill wise, but de Randamie has a strength & power advantage.

3) Yana is not a good fighter. If you can watch her fights & training videos and tell me that she has good form & fundamentals, you're either lying or don't know what you're talking about. Her punching mechanics need a lot of work as do her kicks, she doesn't pivot on her base foot half the time and fails to open up her hips to get power on her kicks. She's essentially lifting her leg into the kicks through a wide arc which loses a lot of speed & power. Holly has been discussed enough times so I'm not going into it again.

1) Ofc i did, i saw all her fights. The thing is Evinger wasn't much of a threat in the stand up so Cyborg could be over aggressive and not care at all about retaliation against Evinger, who really didn't had many of a chance of hurting Cyborg with counters. Due to Cyborg higher volume and gas tank, i don't think missing some hard shots it's that big of a problem.

2) I've seen just some of Baars fights at Lion Fight and her fights at Bellator (didn't see the one you talking about), but just with that i couldn't see Valentina winning, Valentina would be totally oversized. Being that smaller against someone with good knees like Baars would probably be a nightmare at MT clinch, and the reach advantage (about 15cm) ? I don't see at all how she would win. I don't know anything about Antonina, but Valentina certainly lacks power, and even tho Baars is "punchable", her chin is unquestionable, without a threat of being KO'd she could make it less technical and play rangy, while aggressive. Good luck maintaining the clinch against someone that stronger than you too..

3) Hey, what's up with these high standards when it comes to BW and Cyborg? To WMMA standards, Yana is definitely a good fighter, having good fundamentals and being effective are 2 different things, Yana has good grappling overall speaking and very above average hand speed, ofc she's not in Nunes or Cyborg level, but she's no can.
Holly is a good fighter too, not sure what you are talking about, she has great movement, high volume and is elusive enough to, in most fights, throw combos walking forward and leave without getting countered in the process (not against high lv strikers like Shev and GDR tho), also her high kick set ups are simple and effective, already worked twice in UFC, and again, if it was all about fundamentals the heavyweight champion of the world wouldn't be Deontay Wilder.

 

[executionermma]

Val is once again with the scumbag cheater, i hope he gets cut now.
Also, war Macfarlane.

 

[Rizz]

Interesting post Yana put up on Russian social media. Someone else posted it on another forum but I thought it was interesting enough that it should probably be posted here also.

Here is a link to it:
https://vk.com/id249368?w=wall249368_11889/all

Here is the google translation.
"I got a crazy experience this weekend

thanks to everyone for their support. It is not always possible to do what you want, sometimes you have to make compromises. For those who asked why you need this,

sometimes there is simply no choice. Thanks to Dana White I now do not need to think about money (do not look at the official figures, I was paid at times more than $) I went out on a short notice not in my weight and spent a crazy media week in order to lead the number tournament in my debut fight in the UFS. Dividing the cage with Cyborg, now it's definitely harder for me to not have the

time to return to my weight and make noise here

watch the news. Coming soon to battle"

The most interesting part was the "Thanks to Dana White I now do not need to think about money (do not look at the official figures, I was paid at times more than $)".

I might not like Cyborg but I can admit that she is indirectly doing some good for WMMA. All these girls who would otherwise be broke are getting life changing money for fighting her. Now I wonder how much did Yana get paid since that she says she got multiple times more than the official records say. This probably explains why Cindy Dandois is fighting so hard to fight Cyborg. The sad thing is if she even attempted to work on her striking she probably would have fought Cyborg by now.

 

[leto1776]

Interesting post Yana put up on Russian social media. Someone else posted it on another forum but I thought it was interesting enough that it should probably be posted here also.

Here is a link to it:
https://vk.com/id249368?w=wall249368_11889/all

Here is the google translation.
"I got a crazy experience this weekend

thanks to everyone for their support. It is not always possible to do what you want, sometimes you have to make compromises. For those who asked why you need this,

sometimes there is simply no choice. Thanks to Dana White I now do not need to think about money (do not look at the official figures, I was paid at times more than $) I went out on a short notice not in my weight and spent a crazy media week in order to lead the number tournament in my debut fight in the UFS. Dividing the cage with Cyborg, now it's definitely harder for me to not have the

time to return to my weight and make noise here

watch the news. Coming soon to battle"

The most interesting part was the "Thanks to Dana White I now do not need to think about money (do not look at the official figures, I was paid at times more than $)".

I might not like Cyborg but I can admit that she is indirectly doing some good for WMMA. All these girls who would otherwise be broke are getting life changing money for fighting her. Now I wonder how much did Yana get paid since that she says she got multiple times more than the official records say. This probably explains why Cindy Dandois is fighting so hard to fight Cyborg. The sad thing is if she even attempted to work on her striking she probably would have fought Cyborg by now.

Just as importantly, she said "not in my weight," which is something for everyone calling her a true featherweight,

 

[aerius]

2) I've seen just some of Baars fights at Lion Fight and her fights at Bellator (didn't see the one you talking about), but just with that i couldn't see Valentina winning, Valentina would be totally oversized. Being that smaller against someone with good knees like Baars would probably be a nightmare at MT clinch, and the reach advantage (about 15cm) ? I don't see at all how she would win. I don't know anything about Antonina, but Valentina certainly lacks power, and even tho Baars is "punchable", her chin is unquestionable, without a threat of being KO'd she could make it less technical and play rangy, while aggressive. Good luck maintaining the clinch against someone that stronger than you too..

And you are wrong. Baars doesn't have good clinch knees, as has been pointed out already, her clinch work is weak. Her balance is lacking and she doesn't use good grips and posture control. She was barely holding even against Angela Whitley (who??) in the clinch, either Shevchenko sister would badly abuse Baars with clinch throws & dumps, which by the way are the highest scoring techniques in MT other than a knockdown. What Baars has is a good step-in knee to catch opponents sleeping at longer range and a counter knee that works well against fighters like Cyborg who rush in recklessly, clinch knees, nope.

Sidenote: is it just me or is the legend of Baars like the legend of Buakaw? If you follow Muay Thai you'll know what I mean.

3) Hey, what's up with these high standards when it comes to BW and Cyborg? To WMMA standards, Yana is definitely a good fighter, having good fundamentals and being effective are 2 different things, Yana has good grappling overall speaking and very above average hand speed, ofc she's not in Nunes or Cyborg level, but she's no can.
Holly is a good fighter too, not sure what you are talking about, she has great movement, high volume and is elusive enough to, in most fights, throw combos walking forward and leave without getting countered in the process (not against high lv strikers like Shev and GDR tho), also her high kick set ups are simple and effective, already worked twice in UFC,

I have high standards for everyone. I consider someone like Pennington, Tecia Torres, or even Nina Ansaroff as the baseline. Yana doesn't make the grade. You speak of her great hand speed but did you ever look at WHY she has fast hands? It's because she's arm punching with no weight behind them.

Now, there are a lot of fighters who are still effective even though they're not as good since they have high athleticism and/or extreme aggression to make up for it. Holly, Pena, and Andrade are examples of such fighters.

and again, if it was all about fundamentals the heavyweight champion of the world wouldn't be Deontay Wilder.

And boxing's heavyweight division is about as devoid of talent these days as the UFC's LHW division.

 

[executionermma]

And you are wrong. Baars doesn't have good clinch knees, as has been pointed out already, her clinch work is weak. Her balance is lacking and she doesn't use good grips and posture control. She was barely holding even against Angela Whitley (who??) in the clinch, either Shevchenko sister would badly abuse Baars with clinch throws & dumps, which by the way are the highest scoring techniques in MT other than a knockdown. What Baars has is a good step-in knee to catch opponents sleeping at longer range and a counter knee that works well against fighters like Cyborg who rush in recklessly, clinch knees, nope.

Sidenote: is it just me or is the legend of Baars like the legend of Buakaw? If you follow Muay Thai you'll know what I mean.

And boxing's heavyweight division is about as devoid of talent these days as the UFC's LHW division.

Most fighters that lanky lack proper balance, it's normal, even Semmy did. I did watch that one and lol it was kinda one sided even in theclinch, that other girl was barely throwing anything in the clinch.

I think you really underestimate the size factor, i don't know about Antonina but look at Baars's fights at Lion for example, these are all big girls, most of them over 5'9 and with good reachs, Valentina wouldn't be able to ragdoll Baars like Cyborg was doing when they were clinching so nah i don't see her outpointing Baars with throws and sweeps.

You definitely have a point about Baars best knees but it's not like she doesn't know what she's doing in the clinch, from what i saw she usually throws more and is very comfortable there, although she prefers to fight more rangy and use her reach and jab.

No, i don't follow MT.

About boxing HW.. my point is that Wilder is beating guys much more skilled like Ortiz, Washington, Spilzka, and even old man Harrison due to athleticism, raw power and chin, isn't just about fundamentals or all combat sports champions would be technicians.

 

[executionermma]

So now isn't her weight? Ok then.. Unfortunately UFC doesn't have a FW division but if they did, they should make her stay.

 

[Rizz]

So now isn't her weight? Ok then.. Unfortunately UFC doesn't have a FW division but if they did, they should make her stay.

I think its pretty obvious why she tweeted that. She was trying to drum up interest so they would pick her to fight Cyborg. Would you rather fight at your weightclass for 10k/10k or get beat up by Cyborg for 3 minutes at a higher weight class for multiples more than 100k like she said?

 

[executionermma]

I think its pretty obvious why she tweeted that. She was trying to drum up interest so they would pick her to fight Cyborg. Would you rather fight at your weightclass for 10k/10k or get beat up by Cyborg for 3 minutes at a higher weight class for multiples more than 100k like she said?

I understand that, but if it was up to me i'd build 145 and make her stay, not only she's cutting a lot to make 135 (unhealthy) but she said she was moving up before, now she loses to Cyborg and goes back? Hmm personally i don't like that, but since there is no 145 division it's fine