Official Women's Division Discussion #25

[Eater of Souls]

Fuckin unblock me you piece of garbage! haha.

Eh?

 

[WingsLax9042]

EBI 18 just started... on Fightpass. Female Flyweight BJJ Title Tournment. In case anybody wants to check it out. Its been a springboard into Invicta in the past, EBI winner Erin Blanchfield for instance. Its good shit.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

Carmouche & Alexis Davis both are harder matchups for Shev than Eye.

Carmouche would be the strongest grappler which Shev will meet at 125, and Alexis Davis has the skills to trap Shev in her guard.

Carmouche and Davis don't have the records for a title shot yet. Might as well let Eye have her day to build Val's hype in the meantime. And I'm saying that as someone who had her losing to Chookagian (but then I'm never upset when a boring point fighter loses a decision). Hell dana is desperate for a title fight on ufc 233.

 

[Rizz]

Carmouche and Davis don't have the records for a title shot yet. Might as well let Eye have her day to build Val's hype in the meantime. And I'm saying that as someone who had her losing to Chookagian (but then I'm never upset when a boring point fighter loses a decision). Hell dana is desperate for a title fight on ufc 233.

With how active Valentina always likes to be we might get 2 title fights in the next 3 or 5 months. Especially since she had to wait almost a year to finally get her title shot. She said in the press conference that since she is the champion now he gets to choose the fight dates. Instead of her having to wait on Nicco she can now choose to be as active as she wants to be.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

Joanna always punches air early in her fights unless you run at her. Generally speaking it takes a couple minutes or so for her to consistently find the range with her jab and start opening up to land at a higher clip. She's not like Valentina who instinctively knows the distance, she needs to touch her way in with the jab, feel the range, then start connecting consistently. Watch her fight against Valerie Letourneau, she spends the first half of round 1 punching air. Every single Joanna fight starts with her probing with low kicks and trying to find the distance with her jab, and until her jab starts touching she punches a lot of air.

True, I've seen her do that in previous fights. But it's a terrible habit and was especially pronounced, and particularly bad against Shevchenko, a counterpuncher who relished the opportunity at timing it gave her.

Yeah, she got away with it against Letourneau, a horrendous striker Joanna could beat with her eyes closed. Not so against Valentina.

Punching air like that is a real no-no, just like slowly and predictably circling into the power is bad. (The first Rose fight) For years, Joanna got away with these mistakes because she was just so much better overall than her opponents. But once the division caught up, and she started fighting tougher competition, it becomes exploitable.

Now, some fighters continue to evolve and improve, even when they're champions, while others are satisfied with where they are. JJ made some improvements in the Rose rematch with her movement, which is to the credit of her and ATT, but other than that? I haven't seen any improvement since, certainly not in the Valentina bout yesterday.

Some of her air shots are faints,

That's not what a feint looks like.

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

With how active Valentina always likes to be we might get 2 title fights in the next 3 or 5 months. Especially since she had to wait almost a year to finally get her title shot. She said in the press conference that since she is the champion now he gets to choose the fight dates. Instead of her having to wait on Nicco she can now choose to be as active as she wants to be.

We'll see, that sounds more like she wolnt be super active. It's not like she needed to fight Nicco if she really wanted a fight before I'm sure that she could have been matched with any of the flyweight top ten and actually have a quality win in the division, instead she sat on her laurels complaining.
I hope you're right though and she's an active champion.

 

[Eater of Souls]

True, I've seen her do that in previous fights. But it's a terrible habit and was especially pronounced, and particularly bad against Shevchenko, a counterpuncher who relished the opportunity at timing it gave her.

Yeah, she got away with it against Letourneau, a horrendous striker Joanna could beat with her eyes closed. Not so against Valentina.

Punching air like that is a real no-no, just like slowly and predictably circling into the power is bad. (The first Rose fight) For years, Joanna got away with these mistakes because she was just so much better overall than her opponents. But once the division caught up, and she started fighting tougher competition, it becomes exploitable.

Now, some fighters continue to evolve and improve, even when they're champions, while others are satisfied with where they are. JJ made some improvements in the Rose rematch with her movement, which is to the credit of her and ATT, but other than that? I haven't seen any improvement since, certainly not in the Valentina bout yesterday.



That's not what a feint looks like.

Again with the sweeping generalization. Some of her shots. See the word "some." She is feinting an attack to attempt to draw a response. This is a surprisingly common method of controlling distance and timing.

Some of her shots when they were aligned were an attempt to control the lead hand of Shevchenko by turning a weak jab into an attempt at a hand trap.

Other feints where she punched at air the first time pulled Val's hands up and then JJ was able to land a straight to the body.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

Carmouche and Davis don't have the records for a title shot yet. Might as well let Eye have her day to build Val's hype in the meantime. And I'm saying that as someone who had her losing to Chookagian (but then I'm never upset when a boring point fighter loses a decision). Hell dana is desperate for a title fight on ufc 233.

I'm only upset because I had a good amount of money on Chookagian by decision. Close fight that went almost exactly as I predicted, with Chookagian winning 2 out of 3 rounds...and the judges go the other way. That split decision cost me more money than I won back thanks to Shevchenko and Dawodu, too.

Fun fact- The same idiot, Benoit Roussel, who scored Dawodu-Bochniak 29-28 Bochniak, the worst scorecard of the year, was also one of the 2 judges who gave it to Eye.

 

[Eater of Souls]

We'll see, that sounds more like she wolnt be super active. It's not like she needed to fight Nicco if she really wanted a fight before I'm sure that she could have been matched with any of the flyweight top ten and actually have a quality win in the division, instead she sat on her laurels complaining.
I hope you're right though and she's an active champion.

She said she wanted to be active.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

Again with the sweeping generalization. Some of her shots. See the word "some." She is feinting an attack to attempt to draw a response. This is a surprisingly common method of controlling distance and timing.

Have you ever trained a form of striking? Feints don't involve fully extending a punch like that. They're far more subtle, like when a fighter swishes their hips, or slightly extends their forearm only from a stance.

Punching the air with a fully extended arm completely defeats the purpose of a feint.

 

[leto1776]

At EFc 76 on Saturday (still up on DAZN) Karolina Wojcik stepped up on ~2weeks notice to face defending champion Chiara Penco.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Have you ever trained a form of striking? Feints don't involve fully extending a punch like that. They're far more subtle, like when a fighter swishes their hips, or slightly extends their forearm only from a stance.

Punching the air with a fully extended arm completely defeats the purpose of a feint.

Why, yes. Only for my entire life, but what do I know?

You are generalizing from one strike to all feints. Be more specific. If you are specifically talking about shots where she fully extended her arms, possibly you should have said so. I am not responsible for your failure to communicate effectively.

A jab can be used as a distraction, boxers have been doing this for over a hundred years. It was the first form of feint my boxing coach learned and he would be well over a hundred if he were still alive.
Pretending to attack one area and attacking another, again with a fully extended punch, is a form of feint used in boxing.

There are varieties of pretty much everything in striking. There is not a "one feint to rule them all." Sorry.

 

[aerius]

True, I've seen her do that in previous fights. But it's a terrible habit and was especially pronounced, and particularly bad against Shevchenko, a counterpuncher who relished the opportunity at timing it gave her.

Yeah, she got away with it against Letourneau, a horrendous striker Joanna could beat with her eyes closed. Not so against Valentina.

I would say it's more a result of her limitations rather than a bad habit. Not too many fighters have a finely tuned feel for distance so they need a way to touch & feel the range. If we look at boxing for example, the first thing most fighters do is rangefinding with their jabs and getting them to touch so they can feel the distance before unpacking the rest of their punching arsenal. In kickboxing & Muay Thai this will often be done with the jab and teep. It's a textbook method for getting the range down.

Punching air like that is a real no-no, just like slowly and predictably circling into the power is bad. (The first Rose fight) For years, Joanna got away with these mistakes because she was just so much better overall than her opponents. But once the division caught up, and she started fighting tougher competition, it becomes exploitable.

There's nothing wrong with circling into the power side, that's one of those simplistic rules like "lead foot goes on the outside in southpaw vs. orthodox" that commentators spew out all the time and less knowledgeable fans think is the truth. To give examples, GSP often circled into his opponents' power hand to get a better angle on his jab and Valentina often does so as well to bait out strikes from her opponents and counter them. Or if we look at Conor MacGregor, he'll play the lead foot dominance game early in the fight, then let his opponent get the outside angle so he can pivot on the inside and throw his left straight across the weak plane of their body.

High level strikers will sometimes break these "commonly accepted rules", but there's a logical method & reasoning behind it that's built into their style. They're not doing it because they're stupid, it's done because it generally gives them an advantage against their opponents.

Now, some fighters continue to evolve and improve, even when they're champions, while others are satisfied with where they are. JJ made some improvements in the Rose rematch with her movement, which is to the credit of her and ATT, but other than that? I haven't seen any improvement since, certainly not in the Valentina bout yesterday.

I'd agree that she didn't improve between the Rose and Tecia fights, I think she actually went backwards a bit and it was her worst performance since the Karolina fight. But between the Tecia and Valentina fights there were a lot of noticeable improvements. I don't think she's quite at the same level she was pre-ATT but it was still one of her better performances. We don't agree, well, that's fine. Let's call it and move on.

 

[Eater of Souls]

I would say it's more a result of her limitations rather than a bad habit. Not too many fighters have a finely tuned feel for distance so they need a way to touch & feel the range. If we look at boxing for example, the first thing most fighters do is rangefinding with their jabs and getting them to touch so they can feel the distance before unpacking the rest of their punching arsenal. In kickboxing & Muay Thai this will often be done with the jab and teep. It's a textbook method for getting the range down.

Yep. If you can touch them with the jab, you can nail them with the cross. Meaning if my jab could touch the guy, my right cross could slam home (orthodox, none of this fucking southpaw shit).



Using the jab as a range finder or to measure distance is a tried and true technique.

If anyone wants to argue, well, a simple google search will bring up a ton of boxing coaches showing how to do this. Along with varieties of feints. A subject on which I am tired of arguing with people given that my answers are easily found by anyone caring to look to clean up wholes in their knowledge.

 

[leto1776]

Have you ever trained a form of striking? Feints don't involve fully extending a punch like that. They're far more subtle, like when a fighter swishes their hips, or slightly extends their forearm only from a stance.

Punching the air with a fully extended arm completely defeats the purpose of a feint.

I only trained boxing/kickboxing for less than a year, and that was about 13 years ago now, but we were taught to use both jabs and front kicks as range finders. A lot of fighters do it.

BTw, if you read more and posted less, you’d know that both @Eater of Souls and @aerius are two of the most knowledgeable posters on this forum when it comes to the striking arts.

Read more, post less.

 

[leto1776]

Big congrats to @Xuh !!!



Please pm me so I can get this mailed out to you.

 

[Better Every Day]

Bec Rawlings says this relates to what she calls "my feature film documentary"...

 

[Better Every Day]

Aspen Ladd back to calling out Bethe. It would be an easy win for her, in my opinion, but Bethe is down the ladder in terms of the rankings. Is everyone up the ladder busy or ducking Aspen?

 

[Eater of Souls]

Aspen Ladd back to calling out Bethe. It would be an easy win for her, but Bethe is down the ladder in terms of the rankings. Is everyone up the ladder busy or ducking Aspen?

Dunno, but I would like to see Aspen slowly build her name while being careful. Taking her time and developing a serious resume will only help her as she moves up the ladder. Everyone tries to rush their way to a title shot. A fighter who takes their time, builds skill and - as much as I dislike it - builds their brand has more options when challenging. (by more options I mean at the bargaining table). And if she stays busy and remains uninjured, it keeps her cash flow steady.

 

[Better Every Day]

Dunno, but I would like to see Aspen slowly build her name while being careful. Taking her time and developing a serious resume will only help her as she moves up the ladder. Everyone tries to rush their way to a title shot. A fighter who takes their time, builds skill and - as much as I dislike it - builds their brand has more options when challenging. (by more options I mean at the bargaining table). And if she stays busy and remains uninjured, it keeps her cash flow steady.

Good points.