Official Women's Division Discussion #25

[Automata]

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.

Speaking of July...




Megan Anderson is of course still pushing for a shot at Cyborg on her twitter.

 

[teddy078]

Vieira's wrestling and grappling is no joke. I think she might be the biggest threat to Nunes if she can tighten up her striking defence a bit. She has solid takedowns, good transitions, and strong top control game that just sucks the life out of her opponents. Gas tank seems a bit questionable, but it might not matter if she can force a grappling heavy game against Amanda.

Her movement is too slow to force grappling against Nunes.

I think Pena is the biggest threat to Nunes now. She is much better at closing distance than Vieria, and she also has good cardio.

 

[carelessandheem]

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

 

[Dsfdandan]

Also, I can't believe Ketlen "Tiny" Vieira won with such a massive size disadvantage!

Valentina Shevchenko-esque, I must say.

 

[Felis]

Well, that sucks for Raquel.

But on the other hand, Nunes vs Pennington doesn't really have a must-watch vibe to it.
Not saying she doesn't deserve the title shot, but with her last fight being a while back and the injury in the meantime, I'm not so sure she's really ready anyways.

 

[Felis]

Megan Anderson is of course still pushing for a shot at Cyborg on her twitter.

Maybe she should try pushing for any fight in the UFC first...

But reading her latest twitter posts she really doesn't seem interested in that.

 

[aerius]

Her movement is too slow to force grappling against Nunes.

I think Pena is the biggest threat to Nunes now. She is much better at closing distance than Vieria, and she also has good cardio.

Pena fundamentals aren't really there and she depends far too much on brute forcing everything. That's not going to work well against opponents with good fundamentals who don't brain fart and give her freebies. If you look at her fight against Valentina she gassed herself out and messed up her shoulder trying to force the takedown, and it took her over a full round of grappling to secure the takedown while getting tripped on her ass twice by the smaller fighter. Same thing with her ground game, she doesn't have good awareness of position nor does she pick her shots well. It works when opponents don't know what they're doing or lose their composure, but once again, look what Valentina did to her.

This is why I like Vieira, she doesn't have the speed but she understands the concept of timing entries, getting her grips & body position right, and adjusting & switching takedown attacks when she gets stuffed instead of trying to force it. Her ground game is also a lot more measured, she secures position and doesn't give her opponents room to scramble or do anything funny. Her fundamentals are good and she's methodical in the way she works to control opponents and setup her ground game, she's not figuritively throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks like Pena.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Pena fundamentals aren't really there and she depends far too much on brute forcing everything. That's not going to work well against opponents with good fundamentals who don't brain fart and give her freebies. If you look at her fight against Valentina she gassed herself out and messed up her shoulder trying to force the takedown, and it took her over a full round of grappling to secure the takedown while getting tripped on her ass twice by the smaller fighter. Same thing with her ground game, she doesn't have good awareness of position nor does she pick her shots well. It works when opponents don't know what they're doing or lose their composure, but once again, look what Valentina did to her.

This is why I like Vieira, she doesn't have the speed but she understands the concept of timing entries, getting her grips & body position right, and adjusting & switching takedown attacks when she gets stuffed instead of trying to force it. Her ground game is also a lot more measured, she secures position and doesn't give her opponents room to scramble or do anything funny. Her fundamentals are good and she's methodical in the way she works to control opponents and setup her ground game, she's not figuritively throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks like Pena.

Yep. She is a much smarter fighter. And this is why she won last night. Sure, Cat does not quite have the snap she used to, but Vieria just fought much smarter.

 

[curryjunkie]

There were flashes of what made Cat great in the past, but unfortunately they were just moments of what could've been. Her distance striking was never that good but man, it was so slow and sloppy in this fight. Ok body kicks, but the punches were like WMMA from 10 years ago. I thought she did well in the clinch with her knees and she was hurting and wearing down Vieira in the 3rd, but she just doesn't have the explosiveness and snap that she once did.

Vieira's wrestling and grappling is no joke. I think she might be the biggest threat to Nunes if she can tighten up her striking defence a bit. She has solid takedowns, good transitions, and strong top control game that just sucks the life out of her opponents. Gas tank seems a bit questionable, but it might not matter if she can force a grappling heavy game against Amanda.

Dern vs. Yoder went about as expected. Dern still has little to no knowledge of clinch takedowns, she doesn't know how to use her over/underhooks and when she had the single leg she was trying to lift with her back horizontal and her hips way out in space. That's never gonna work, you gotta get the hips in close and get your feet under you so you can put real oomph into the lift, DC and Jessica Andrade are textbook examples of how to do it. Dern squeaked out a win but she's got a lot of work to do, fortunately the SW division is pretty deep so they can take their time matching her up and slowly moving her up the ladder.

yea she just about edged it by keeping yoder against the fence for long periods, her striking is hilarious , i enjoyed watching her ass though, so theres that.
zingano should give it up, she was tweeting about cyroid early this week, maybe move up for a retirement fight and get her ass beat, on the way to cashing a cheque.
woulda been hilarious if kunitskaya was able to get the back properly and choke cyroid out, oh well, eventually it will happen, maybe nunes can do it.

 

[PurpleStorm]

I just enjoy whatever fights there are & don't think too much about who should have fought who or this fight shouldn't happen. Maybe I'm bad at keeping track of all that in my head, the different divisions and who can move up or down in weight. I'm more like 'oh they made a fight and both fighters agreed to fight - woohoo!'

 

[PurpleStorm]

Yep. She is a much smarter fighter. And this is why she won last night. Sure, Cat does not quite have the snap she used to, but Vieria just fought much smarter.

Big time. I watched a breakdown before the fight (pretty sure it was two guys from bloody elbow) and they were saying Zingano basically knows one speed - pedal to the medal all the time. That was so evident in this fight. I mean credit to her for going all out but yeesh if she could switch gears she'd be so much more effective. As you say, Vieira was the much smarter fighter.

Ring IQ is so important. It's a great topic for in-depth analysis. I've been enjoying lately looking for it in every single fight. For example I think Lipski won her fight based on high ring iq, knowing when to be tough in the clinch win the exchange and get back out to conserve energy over five rounds. Juarez has some excellent striking and a good complete game but I just don't think she did enough to demonstrate the dominance necessary to take away Lipski's belt.

There are always some fights where the person seems to think they are winning or have done 'just enough' to win. Whenever I see that I'm like 'wow you can't be so self-satisfied - you've gotta be much more dominating to get that W.'

 

[curryjunkie]

mackenzie dern is on 25 grand a fight

 

[Eater of Souls]

Big time. I watched a breakdown before the fight (pretty sure it was two guys from bloody elbow) and they were saying Zingano basically knows one speed - pedal to the medal all the time. That was so evident in this fight. I mean credit to her for going all out but yeesh if she could switch gears she'd be so much more effective. As you say, Vieira was the much smarter fighter.

Ring IQ is so important. It's a great topic for in-depth analysis. I've been enjoying lately looking for it in every single fight. For example I think Lipski won her fight based on high ring iq, knowing when to be tough in the clinch win the exchange and get back out to conserve energy over five rounds. Juarez has some excellent striking and a good complete game but I just don't think she did enough to demonstrate the dominance necessary to take away Lipski's belt.

There are always some fights where the person seems to think they are winning or have done 'just enough' to win. Whenever I see that I'm like 'wow you can't be so self-satisfied - you've gotta be much more dominating to get that W.'

Some people naturally have a good fight IQ, or were taught early enough that it makes no difference. Others, like, say GSP, have a decent grasp and work really well with their team (really, GSP is, to me, the best example of teamwork winning fights in all of MMA). An example of a fighter/team failing at this would be Shechenko's last fight with Nunes. One might make the technical argument that she won, but you have to adjust to win in the eyes of the judges when you know damn well you are not going to finish the fight early. (the takedown she went for on instinct in the last round was what wound up costing her the round IMO). Worst example of teamwork and fight IQ would be BJ Penn. I like the guy, but he did so well on natural ability that he never learned shit, and when that was no longer enough, well, we see what happened.

Really more fighters should spend time cornering. You learn a fuck ton doing that. I have only been able to do it a few times, but you cannot get any closer and learn any more without getting hit in the face.

 

[leto1776]

I went for a little bit of controversy with this one. Particularly with the way the beginning plays out.

 

[Rizz]

Ok, I finally got a chance to catch Dern vs Yoder. I scored it 2-1 for Dern. In my opinion, Dern clearly won round 1 and 3. This was a very good matchmaking. They were both evenly matched and it presented a good challenge and step up in competition for Dern. One thing I like is how she is not afraid of getting hit like a lot of BJJ people who come to MMA. I did not notice any drop off in performance due to cardio issues which is very good.

Dern did not improve too much from her last fight. She still punches hard and lacks enough head movement. She did evade a few punches but it was not enough to say she has good head movement. Her against the cage wrestling is terrible. Listening to DC explaining what she should do for her to get the takedown makes me want her to train wrestling with him. However her shots from striking range were not bad. She level changed and would have gotten the 1st if she just continued to fight for it or chained wrestled. She was successful with her second shot from striking range in the 3rd. Once the fight got to the ground there was a clear gap in skill levels. With more time and/or the fighters not being pressed against the cage I think Dern would have gotten the choke.

How popular or how well she develops is going to depend on a lot matchmaking. She has some deep holes to fill and a terrible matchup can cause a big setback for Dern. She needs to stay in the lower levels of 115 for another year before she start going up the ranks. She is at that point where if she improves on her takedowns or striking she will be a force. I just did not see enough improvement for her to take another jump in difficulty yet.

P.S. I really hope Yoder does not get cut. I been a fan of Yoder, Moyle, JJ Aldrich, Amanda Cooper and Suarez since TUF 23.

 

[aerius]

I went for a little bit of controversy with this one. Particularly with the way the beginning plays out.

Thoughts. Dern doesn't need an olympic or other high lever wrestler to teach her takedowns, what she needs is a high school or college wrestling coach to teach her fundamentals from the ground up. As in step 1 - proper posture, step 2 - this is an under/overhook and this is how & why you use it, step 3 - this is how you clasp your hands to secure a grip and so on. I wrestled in high school and we had a couple girls on our team, I'm not even joking when I say they had better fundamentals & technique after a few months of training than Dern does. I mean, I'm former high school wrestler and not even a good one by any measure yet I can still see all the ways that Dern is failing in her wrestling, I don't know how DC kept himself from banging his head into the table in frustration while calling the fight.

 

[leto1776]

Part 2 of my 3 part series, A Case for Atomweights in the UFC



Special thanks to @thatdude21601 for some of the recommendations.

 

[teddy078]

Pena fundamentals aren't really there and she depends far too much on brute forcing everything.

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.

Same thing with her ground game, she doesn't have good awareness of position nor does she pick her shots well. It works when opponents don't know what they're doing or lose their composure, but once again, look what Valentina did to her.

This is why I like Vieira, she doesn't have the speed but she understands the concept of timing entries, getting her grips & body position right, and adjusting & switching takedown attacks when she gets stuffed instead of trying to force it. Her ground game is also a lot more measured, she secures position and doesn't give her opponents room to scramble or do anything funny. Her fundamentals are good and she's methodical in the way she works to control opponents and setup her ground game, she's not figuritively throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks like Pena.

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.

 

[msm1981]

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.

 

[aerius]

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.

Sure, but someone's gotta teach it to her. So far I haven't seen any evidence that she's learning fundamentals & fight smarts, doesn't mean it can't happen, but until she starts showing these things in her fights my current opinion stands.

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.

I'm judging her by her entire career. Since you mention Cat, if Zingano hadn't derp'd herself a dozen times as she's liable to do, Pena would've been down 2 rounds going into the 3rd and lost the fight. But more importantly, Pena's fundamental mistakes are all there which is how Cat got a bunch of freebie throws and takedowns against her. The first takedown in round 1 is a good example, Cat had double unders and a bodylock, and Pena is standing around on one leg trying to block knees that aren't coming. Then she turns sideways in the clinch instead of flattening herself against the fence to buy time for pummeling under or breaking the grip, turning sideways on one leg completes half the throw for Cat. Result? Easy takedown.

Same thing on the 2nd takedown. They're in the clinch and have over/unders on each other, Cat still has her hips behind her and her body isn't flattened on the fence, this means she can still push forward. Pena is a staggered stance with one leg forward and the other way back, trying to pull Cat off the fence. She then uses her rear leg to try and trip Zingano, Cat simply drives forward and pushes her right over for another easy takedown. By lifting her rear foot off the ground in that stance, she can't lean or push into Cat to keep her on the fence, her balance point is her front foot which was level with Cat's feet, making it easy for her to get pushed over backwards.

This is basic high school wrestling stuff and Pena doesn't get it right. I would probably wear out my keyboard trying to summarize all her fundamental flaws.

Pena can get away with a lot since she's one of the better athletes in her division. She's got speed, strength, a good gas tank, and toughness. The problem is she's relied on her athleticism to the detriment of her skills development. This is unfortunately a common problem in MMA.