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Official Women's Division Discussion #26

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I completely agree. Joe Martinez is easily the most professional MMA ring (cage) announcer I have heard. Some prefer Buffer’s over the top antics, but I’ll take Martinez’s smooth delivery any time.
 
Andrea Lee almost did it again. She had a clear win in her hand and decides to grapple a grappler near the end of the fight. Could have easily got choked or put in an armbar but she pulled it out today.

It's actually more surprising when she doesn't try to throw away a fight, I thought she'd gotten over that phase after her fight with AES, apparently not.

Overall though, I like what I'm seeing from Andrea, she had good takedown and clinch defence against the fence and she was pretty good with basing out, breaking grips, and putting the underhooks through to defend. Way too many women just end up holding onto an overhook or clinch and getting dragged down instead of doing the proper anti-grappling things. Her TDD in the open though needs some work, she likes to fight from a tall narrow stance that makes it pretty easy to double-leg off her feet. She seems pretty decent at scrambling back up and in a 3 round fight at least she has the cardio to keep doing it as many times as she needs. Seems to work well with her high paced output & style, but a strong top control fighter could give her problems.

Yoder's fight was weird for me. The fight was more even on the feet than I expected but the ground game was just strange. Yoder had almost complete control but she kept making wonky mistakes like not getting her hooks in to secure position and close it out. One or 2 adjustments and she could flatten Kondo out and pound her out for the stoppage or secure a really strong position for a sub, but she kept skipping those basics and letting Kondo squirm a bit and stay alive. Against someone who isn't completely lost on the ground, Yoder would've lost position a lot or even get reversed if she doesn't tighten up her game. Overall, seems to have finally gotten on the right track but she still has a lot of work to do, 115 is not a forgiving division.

I don't even know what to say about Meatball vs. Lipski. McCann seems to be improving a bit with each fight but dear god did Lipski ever look bad. She was either on Quaaludes or replaced by an alien pod person with the athleticism of someone who's 8 months pregnant. Good for Meatball, but man, Lipski's up there with Tippie-toe Penn on the list of what in the hell performances.
 
Thanks to Andrea Lee for coming through yet again against DLR. Made a lot of money betting her by decision against Ashley Evans-Smith and I got a stupidly good price for her against De La Rosa.

Who knew that beating arguably the 3 worst fighters on the UFC roster, (Christina Marks, Rachael Ostovich, and Nadia Kassem), two of them dreadfully undersized/moving up in weight to boot would make people overrate her so much?

I learned my lesson after losing a small fortune on Lipski versus Calderwood, and didn't bet on her this time. However, while I strongly considered it, I didn't bet on the Meatball, either.

The lesson, as always; NEVER doubt the Meatball!
 
Missed all the fights due to midsummer related drinking shenaningans, but gonna watch them spoiled today - sounds like there's stuff worth seeing even knowing the results. Though not seeing Lee almost pull a Lee live is a pity, hehe. Not as big a pity as Lee not actually pulling a Lee, but still.

Really happy for Yoder and McCann for wins (and sad about Lipski not really being good enough?) and triple happy about Lena's biting ass getting handed to her again :)

Also, what drama?
 
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Missed all the fights due to midsummer related drinking shenaningans, but gonna watch them spoiled today - sounds like there's stuff worth seeing even knowing the results. Though not seeing Lee almost pull a Lee live is a pity, hehe. Not as big a pity as Lee not actually pulling a Lee, but still.

Really happy for Yoder and McCann for wins (and sad about Lipski not really being good enough?) and triple happy about Lena's biting ass getting handed to her again :)

Also, what drama?

LOL great idea @Mittens. Interested in your thoughts after viewing.
 
It's like there's a parallel universe where Meatball just outwrestled a UFC hype train and the American crowd were chanting her name. A couple more wins and she'll be fighting Shevchenko in a stadium with Till on the under card.
 
It's like there's a parallel universe where Meatball just outwrestled a UFC hype train and the American crowd were chanting her name. A couple more wins and she'll be fighting Shevchenko in a stadium with Till on the under card.

And in this universe would the main actually admit to watching it?
 


Listen to this interview and tell me how anyone can not like Meatball Molly. The more I listen to her and the more I watch her improve from fight to fight the more I am noticing she is not your typical brawler. She aspires to be much more. Will she ever get there? only time will tell but I know she will make that journey entertaining. Consider me a fan.
 
Interested in your thoughts after viewing.

Great meatballs of fire, Molly really entertained us.

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Have to agree with all the comments about Lipski looking slow as heck there, she had her moments - especially early in the third, but still. Fun fight nonetheless.

"Karate is no use for you on the floor." While Kondo really had nothing to provide in the fight, I have always found Yoder's grappling entertaining. She constantly moves, and does things (see, I can use technical grappling terms nearly Mir-style!). Have to admit that even with knowing the result beforehand, I was having flashbacks to Dern/Hill/Kish fights and fearing that the judges would find a way to "award" the victory to Kondo :D

In other news, Yoder is quite much an unsung contender when people ramble about the hawter female fighters, if one asks me.



Couldn't get the interweb version of my sportschannel subscription working for some reason or another, so the main card has to wait until I return home.
 
The good thing about UFC using closed scoring was the fact that Syuri Kondo didn't know that
there was 10-8 scores against her until after the fight had wrapped up since she probably would
have panicked and gave up if open scoring was in play like it is with Pancrase in Japan.
 


Listen to this interview and tell me how anyone can not like Meatball Molly. The more I listen to her and the more I watch her improve from fight to fight the more I am noticing she is not your typical brawler. She aspires to be much more. Will she ever get there? only time will tell but I know she will make that journey entertaining. Consider me a fan.


I have a soft spot for the Meatball, but to answer your question about how anyone can not like her...very easily.

At least as recently a year ago, The Meatball was utterly delusional and arrogant about her own abilities.

From the Meatball's own lips;

“My finishes are better than anyone else’s in the division. I’ve worked at this for a very long time and my fights outside of Cage Warriors were probably harder than some of my fights in Cage Warriors."

“I don’t want to come across as arrogant, but I’m ready to fight the world champion today and I’d be able to knock her out. I don’t think it’s going to take too long for me to get my world title in the UFC.”

“Joanna came from Cage Warriors and she wasn’t even a world champion. She had one fight, one knockout [in Cage Warriors] and then absolutely destroyed Carla Esparza, won the world title and retained it five times. What’s different about my situation?"

This was, of course, right before the Meatball was choked unconscious with her ass sticking up in the air against Gillian Robertson.
 
The good thing about UFC using closed scoring was the fact that Syuri Kondo didn't know that
there was 10-8 scores against her until after the fight had wrapped up since she probably would
have panicked and gave up if open scoring was in play like it is with Pancrase in Japan.
Oh yeah, considering how great her performance was I’m so glad she didn’t just give up, what a tragedy that would’ve been.
 
Andrea Lee vs Joanne Calderwood would be a fun next matchup IMO. Although Andrea seems to have been a high profile fighter for ages now, she doesn't really have any outstanding wins. They seem like pretty similar fighters and it'd be winnable for either, so, it'd be a good 'un I think.
I also like how Andrea doesn't throw the fight away at the end like she used to in Invicta anymore, it's clear she's improved with experience, honestly I find it kinda heartwarming, like when the special ed student finally graduates ;)

It's also interesting to see what UFC will do next with Lipski. Maybe they will find some abysmal sub-UFC can for her (which her own supporters believe is more suited to her level apparently) for the next few matches. I wouldn't be totally opposed to that, but on the other hand, given how far short of UFC level she's looked, maybe they'll figure it'd just take too long for her to get up to standard if at all, and say 'No Ariane, yuo are teh can now' and feed her to De La Rosa for a bounceback fight? I guess the best middle road would be to give her Priscila after all, & it'd be hilarious if the 'violence queen' once again turns into the wilting princess in front of Cachoiera's nonstop windmilling arm punches.

(about how slow Lipski was - it was doubly funny because Bisping was talking about how 'lightning fast' her hands were, as she threw looking like she was underwater :P)

Lastly, they should also book Meatball vs Puddinglover, that'd be a banger. Definitely one for a Euro card IMO ;)
 
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