How is Marina Rodriguez ranked 6 with ground game that bad?

TheMMAnalyst said:
Ask @UFCIsNOTRigged, he had her as a future champ before the ORG did her dirty apparently.

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The UFC did do her dirty.

She had wins over 6 or 7 of the top 10 and they refused to give her a title shot. Yeah she would have lost to Zhang but she still had earned a title shot which instead went to Carla, who put on the worst title fight of all time, and then Amanda Lemos who gave arguably the worst title performance of all time.

She is clearly washed now unfortunately and just fighting for a paycheck which is unfortunate because had she been given that title shot she would have earned a challengers fight purse and could have bowed out of the sport gracefully instead of this.
 
UFCIsNOTRigged said:
The UFC did do her dirty.

She had wins over 6 or 7 of the top 10 and they refused to give her a title shot. Yeah she would have lost to Zhang but she still had earned a title shot which instead went to Carla, who put on the worst title fight of all time, and then Amanda Lemos who gave arguably the worst title performance of all time.

She is clearly washed now unfortunately and just fighting for a paycheck which is unfortunate because had she been given that title shot she would have earned a challengers fight purse and could have bowed out of the sport gracefully instead of this.
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I know you gotta defend your girl, but let’s do the harsh truth breakdown.

She was always a very limited fighter, a high volume low-impact out-fighter with bad wrestling defense and poor grappling - she was basically the inverse of Carla Esparza in many ways.

14 UFC fights and 2 finishes as one of the best strikers in the division, one being against the literal ghost/shell of Waterson right before she retired (I’m a sick man so I did enjoy the violence she displayed in that fight). Ultimately she had one amazing performance/finish against Amanda Ribas when they were trying to shove her down our throats, so I appreciated that win as well a lot.

She only had a 4 fight win streak before she fought Lemos for the title eliminator, right before that she lost a split to Carla (I felt she won, but she didn’t) and had a draw with Cynthia Calvillo of all people.

And the capper was she had a split in her favor against Yan as the last win in that 4 fight streak where I thought she lost (and so did many others, it’s 52/48 on MMA Decisikns with the media split as well).

It was tough to feel like she brought enough to the table in violence, dominance, or consistency to warrant a title shot at the time unless you were a big fan of hers, much better fighters got frozen out way longer (Merab, Fitch, Ferguson), it’s the nature of the beast.

In the UFC “deserves” got nothing to do with it, she was a fun fighter that didn’t speak english, rarely finished fights, at times had wonky decisions go for and against her, and was so exposed in wrestling/grappling in her run to contender status you had to question why she never developed any TDD or counter-grappling.

The irony that she lost bad against a similarly flawed Lemos (doesn’t speak English, had wrestling/grappling limitations exposed, also not as many finishes as you’d expect from a power brawler 4/12) isn’t lost on me.

I just still to this day don’t understand why you didn’t expect this based on knowing how the UFC is run (a corrupt business that wants to tip the scales for fighters that make them more money for whatever reason). I’d also say it’s insulting to call her washed when she looks like exactly the same fighter she always was, she’s just not getting the breaks in splits as of late.

She wouldn’t have bowed out of the sport gracefully with one $250k paycheck, she would’ve been fighting pretty much the exact same group of fighters she is now (minus the Waterson gimme).

Crazy how she can go from being a deserving title contender to washed in 2 years off a single KO loss….is that how we define getting washed these days? Losing one bad fight then putting on the same performances she always has and having opponents with better grappling slightly more adapt at game planning against her?

I’ve actually enjoyed a lot of her fights even though she is limited because technical out-fighting in WMMA is rare, but I also know how the UFC works so what they did to her was to be expected at minimum, which means all the intangibles that went into that decision are partly her fault as well (could’ve learned English like Ribas, could’ve learned TDD/grapplng, could’ve beat Lemos in a title eliminator).

Appreciate you being a ride or die for Marina though, it’s nice to see more unheralded fighters have some hardcore fans in this game of clout chaser and flavor of the month front -runners, so much respect to you and her.
 
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I'm not so sure it's a technique issue as much as it is a strategy issue. Her strategy is to hold on hoping the ref stands them up.

If she had the ref from the Potieiria fight, she would have won.
 
Her fight IQ was horrible too, everytime she landed some good punches on the other woman she clinched and then wound up getting out grappled.
 
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EndlessCritic said:
Grasso at least knew how to box and keep range. Marina's problem is she kept voluntarily looking for the Thai clinch, only to get badly countered with body lock takedowns.
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Yeah, I was yelling at the TV and wasn't even rooting for her just so frustrating to watch someone who clearly had better boxing keep trying to clinch. Like it didn't work the first two times why would you do it a third time?
 
EndlessCritic said:
Grasso at least knew how to box and keep range. Marina's problem is she kept voluntarily looking for the Thai clinch, only to get badly countered with body lock takedowns.
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Worst part is that she didn't even try to do anything with the Thai plum, so it didn't even make sense why she kept going for it.
 
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