Official Women's Division Discussion #26

[MajorTB]

Chookagian or Antonina. Let Joanna feast on a shitty grappler so she can have some fun at 125 and get back in her groove.

Lauren Murphy, is probably who I’d go with.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

She has not shown any signs of even thinking about fighting anyone. For this reason, I am glad the UFC stripped her because 125 would have been dead if she was still champ

125 is pretty much dead because you have Valentina who can out-point almost anyone and a bunch of 115/135 rejects who can't touch her.

 

[Askafan]

Let Joanna feast on a shitty grappler.

Well they did offer her Suarez on a March card ...... this is what you get for being a company lass.

 

[msm1981]

No. She is an independent contractor, not an employee.

If Nicco Montano was fighting at Invicta or Bellator she wouldn't be permitted to go
a year plus without taking a fight unless there is medical issues because both promotions
do classify there fighters as salaried employees.

 

[leto1776]

If Nicco Montano was fighting at Invicta or Bellator she wouldn't be permitted to go
a year plus without taking a fight unless there is medical issues because both promotions
do classify there fighters as salaried employees.

Source?

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

man, when did Jojo piss in your cornflakes?

I think its much more to do with the fact that Jojo is so excited about all the ground stuff shes been doing at Syndicate that she wants to show it off. Shes like a kid with a new toy "look, i can wrestle everyone"

The few punches she seemed unable to block where in the opening 30 seconds, and thats just Jojo. She always starts slow, shes said repeatedly in interviews that its like she needs to get hit to get angry and remind herself that shes in a fight.

And she has ALWAYS been more of a clinch striker than a stand and bang striker, she much prefers clinch work where she can use her elbows and knees, theres a reason her nickname is dr KNEEvil. Come on, you know better than that. Yeh, she can stand up, do spinning shit, but her preference has always been clinch, elbow, knee

Besides, it was pretty clear in the second round that she had Ariane's timing sorted. She was dodging everything Lipski threw and countering, when she needed to maintain distance she was using the teep superbly (Lipski's kicks on the other hand totally ineffective).

She controlled the fight, won comfortably against an opponent most people would blow her away.

Not sure what you have against her, but you really let yourself down with that post.

Eh, leto was being rather unfair to Calderwood, who fought smart, prepared very well, and massively improved her wrestling and jits, but your post is way too far in the opposite direction.

Calderwood didn't just "start slow"; she was being beaten up, and easily, before wisely clinching and taking Lipski to the ground. Even in rounds 2 and 3, her striking looked mediocre if not downright poor, as it has in all her previous fights. Her technical stand-up flaws are still there.

Let's put it this way. If Calderwood were to rematch Calvillo right now, Calvillo would beat her convincingly yet again.

 

[PurpleStorm]

Impressions of last night's fights.

Calderwood v Lipski. Ariane's striking looked strong the first couple minutes. Then I was pleasantly surprised by Calderwood demonstrating clear veteran experience to drive into Ariane get a takedown and wear her out. JoJo kept her poise and did everything necessary to get the dominant win. Ariane's young at 24 and gets to learn what she must work on to face better competition. Interested in hearing from others what you think she should train & develop.

PVZ v Ostavich. First round they kept scrambling to improve ground positions. That's something you don't see often in men's fights. I find it entertaining. (By the way I loved the performances last night of Cerrone & Cejudo.) In the second round Rachel overcommitted & paid dearly for it as Page sunk in that arm bar and wouldn't let go. Appreciate the respect they showed for one another after the fight.

 

[Eater of Souls]

Impressions of last night's fights.

Calderwood v Lipski. Ariane's striking looked strong the first couple minutes. Then I was pleasantly surprised by Calderwood demonstrating clear veteran experience to drive into Ariane get a takedown and wear her out. JoJo kept her poise and did everything necessary to get the dominant win. Ariane's young at 24 and gets to learn what she must work on to face better competition. Interested in hearing from others what you think she should train & develop.

With respect to Lipski: as I have been saying, she has to sharpen all of her striking skills. As previously mentioned, she did well via speed and strength via sub-par competition. Grappling wise the only thing that she did that stood out was her sub-defense, and that was limited to end-position defense. Her top control was weak, so was her guard and she kept losing position to a poor grappler. Her TDD was weak, her clinch game poor (bad hips and terrible angle using knee-shield, etc.).

 

[aerius]

Well they did offer her Suarez on a March card ...... this is what you get for being a company lass.

Are you serious? That's like a no-win matchup, if Joanna wins she kills off a contender and if Suarez takes it then Joanna's name value is pretty much done. This is how you kill the long term sustainability of a division. Hopefully Joanna told them she's staying at 125 and will only take fights in that division.

 

[dim_]

Calvillo would beat her convincingly yet again.

She didnt beat her convincingly the first time, so how could she do it again.

 

[Trojanlegal]

Lipski is why I rate level of competition so highly. I been hearing about how amazing she was all this time and she gets convincingly defeated and out grappled by JoJo of all people?


This may not be popular opinion but this is why I can praise ilima for her elite grappling(which she definitely has) but I can't call her an elite fighter until I see her against someone better than Valerie. I would even settle for a fighter known for good takedown defense and good striking.

I have the same thoughts about Ilima-Lei Macfarlane. Bellator’s flyweight division is not even close in quality to the UFC—almost every major world ranking has all UFC fighters in the top 15, save for Macfarlane.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

Are you serious? That's like a no-win matchup, if Joanna wins she kills off a contender and if Suarez takes it then Joanna's name value is pretty much done. This is how you kill the long term sustainability of a division. Hopefully Joanna told them she's staying at 125 and will only take fights in that division.

You're completely correct, but that has been the MO of Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard for a long time now.

Although I made a good amount of money betting on it, I was incensed at N'Gannou-Blaydes 2 and Overeem-Pavlovich for very similar reasons;

https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/ufn-141-a-case-study-in-why-ufc-matchmakers-suck.3869543/

She didnt beat her convincingly the first time, so how could she do it again.

Do you have a medical problem with your eyes? If so, my condolences. Those of us with normal vision watched Calvillo beat Calderwood all 3 rounds, none of which were remotely competitive or close. There is an argument that Lipski did better against Calderwood than Calderwood did against Calvillo.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

I have the same thoughts about Ilima-Lei Macfarlane. Bellator’s flyweight division is not even close in quality to the UFC—almost every major world ranking has all UFC fighters in the top 15, save for Macfarlane.

Most major world rankings are a joke and heavily, heavily overrated UFC fighters due to the Magic Canvas Theory.

Forget MacFarlane, who would be rightly favored against every UFC flyweight except Valentina and Joanna, and has developed her stand-up to the point where she was beating Letourneau in that regard.

Juliana Velasquez would beat Eye badly and probably defeat Calderwood without too much trouble as well.

 

[Trojanlegal]

Most major world rankings are a joke and heavily, heavily overrated UFC fighters due to the Magic Canvas Theory.

Forget MacFarlane, who would be rightly favored against every UFC flyweight except Valentina and Joanna, and has developed her stand-up to the point where she was beating Letourneau in that regard.

Juliana Velasquez would beat Eye badly and probably defeat Calderwood without too much trouble as well.

You may be right but we’ll never know because MacFarlene and Velasquez are not fighting the same level of fighters than Eye, Calderwood, etc. in the UFC.

 

[aerius]

With respect to Lipski: as I have been saying, she has to sharpen all of her striking skills. As previously mentioned, she did well via speed and strength via sub-par competition. Grappling wise the only thing that she did that stood out was her sub-defense, and that was limited to end-position defense. Her top control was weak, so was her guard and she kept losing position to a poor grappler. Her TDD was weak, her clinch game poor (bad hips and terrible angle using knee-shield, etc.).

I was a bit surprised at how poor her ground game was, she did fairly well at controlling her opponents on the ground over in KSW but I guess that just show a)level of competition, and b)her athletic advantage over said competition. Against Calderwood it was hard to believe how many mistakes both fighters were making, no way that fight would make it out of the 1st round with a competent grappler, that was like watching a mid-tier Invicta fight with all the wonky scrambles & positioning.

As for the knee shield, man, it was so bad that she was better off to just stand with both feet on the ground and fight grips instead.
Her hips are turned sideways, her leg is collapsed all the way in against her hip, and she's not even blocking out Calderwood's right hip & leg. And note the foot positioning, if JoJo wanted to, she could easily trip Lipski over her left leg. JoJo still has good posture and can do whatever she wants whereas Lipski is way off balance and struggling to stay upright.

Joanna demonstrates the proper way to do it. Hips as square as possible, jam the shin against the hips & thigh and push away hard to create distance, break posture, and stop the knees. Valentina can't get a knee through since she's blocked out and too far away, nor can she step in to sweep or trip out Joanna's base leg. It also breaks Valentina's posture so she can't put any weight on her punches or any real force on throw attempts.

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

You may be right but we’ll never know because MacFarlene and Velasquez are not fighting the same level of fighters than Eye, Calderwood, etc. in the UFC.

Eye and Calderwood aren't exactly facing and defeating solid competition either, though.

Eye's victories are a close decision against Faria, beating a Jessica Rose-Clark who we saw was barely better than PVZ, and a 50/50 decision against Chookagian that myself and half the people watching thought she lost.

Calderwood's victories at 125 are, what? A worse version of the same Letourneau MacFarlane beat as well as Lipski.

 

[dim_]

Do you have a medical problem with your eyes? If so, my condolences. Those of us with normal vision watched Calvillo beat Calderwood all 3 rounds, none of which were remotely competitive or close. There is an argument that Lipski did better against Calderwood than Calderwood did against Calvillo.

lol, no.

Round 1 - Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the TD late in the round which stole it
Round 2 - Clearly a Calderwood round
Round 3 - Same as round 1, Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the late TD to steal the round

The third round Calderwood outstruck her pretty significantly, but the TD stole it



29-28

But the win came courtesy of 2 late takedowns. and only an idiot would score the 2nd round for Calvillo





the idea that all three rounds went easily to calviilo and "werent competitive" is utter horseshit.

She won two rounds because of td's despite being outstruck, Calderwood won the 2nd

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

lol, no.

Round 1 - Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the TD late in the round which stole it
Round 2 - Clearly a Calderwood round
Round 3 - Same as round 1, Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the late TD to steal the round

The third round Calderwood outstruck her pretty significantly, but the TD stole it

View attachment 509051

29-28

But the win came courtesy of 2 late takedowns. and only an idiot would score the 2nd round for Calvillo

View attachment 509049



the idea that all three rounds went easily to calviilo and "werent competitive" is utter horseshit.

She won two rounds because of td's despite being outstruck, Calderwood won the 2nd

What an absolutely embarrassing post. I've seen some people claim that Calderwood won round 2, yes, although I strongly disagree. But to claim that Calderwood "controlled standing" in rounds 1 and 3 and Calvillo only "stole" each round with a takedown is biased idiocy. Calvillo boxed her ears off. Calderwood occasionally landing some weak, technically flawed kicks that glanced off the side of Calvillo's quads or shoulders does not supercede Calvillo repeatedly punching Calderwood in the face.

 

[aerius]

lol, no.

Round 1 - Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the TD late in the round which stole it
Round 2 - Clearly a Calderwood round
Round 3 - Same as round 1, Calderwood controlled standing, Cynthia got the late TD to steal the round

The third round Calderwood outstruck her pretty significantly, but the TD stole it

View attachment 509051

29-28

But the win came courtesy of 2 late takedowns. and only an idiot would score the 2nd round for Calvillo

View attachment 509049



the idea that all three rounds went easily to calviilo and "werent competitive" is utter horseshit.

She won two rounds because of td's despite being outstruck, Calderwood won the 2nd

Congratulations, you're a dumbass who didn't watch the fight and thinks that all strikes are equal. They're not. JoJo loses all rounds on striking alone unless you're using Cecil Peoples scoring where punches don't count. With the exception of a couple knees, all Calderwood did was land a bunch of weak slappy kicks that barely made contact while Calvillo was landing clean punches, snapping JoJo's head around, and knocking her back on her heels. As much as I dislike her, all 3 rounds were clear wins for Calvillo.

 

[null]

I wonder why Maycee Barber is moving up to flyweight so quickly at this young age, especially when she wants to make a name and earn a title shot so quickly. Her physicality is an assett at strawweight and will be less so against bigger opponents at flyweight I am sure.