Official Women's Division Discussion #26

[SpecialAgentFoxMulder]

I don't see it. She is like what Ronda and Joanna used to be. Wanting a legacy. To make her mark. Can't do that if she retired just as she hit her stride. If she won that I can see the UFC picking her up. 100% it would happen unless there was some crazy business decision that got in the way. Now once they sign her and she loses at some point they will do to her what they are doing to Cyborg. If she got huge somehow then they will do to her what they are doing to Conor. The UFC is going to UFC.

You may very well be right. You dont win multiple Olympic gold medals by not being a competitor. Crying after a fight you absolutely dominated because you couldn't find a finish shows just how much drive she has to be the best. Either way, I consider myself a fan, so I'll be rooting for her.

 

[Sausage_Carius]

You may very well be right. You dont win multiple Olympic gold medals by not being a competitor. Crying after a fight you absolutely dominated because you couldn't find a finish shows just how much drive she has to be the best. Either way, I consider myself a fan, so I'll be rooting for her.

A lot of fighters care win or lose. Joanna used to cry after winning. She hasn't done that since the Andrade fight which has me worried but she still cries after a loss so she still cares. There are extremes of course.

 

[msm1981]

What Is funny but true is if Aspen Ladd would have had the weigh in difficulties in New York
the fight with Germaine either would have been canceled or she would have had to make a
trip to the emergency room and been tested for everything under the sun to be cleared.

 

[WingsLax9042]

Its almost time for Souza vs. Van Buren for the Invicta Strawweight title!

Its also Aspen Ladd day, motherfugs!

 

[WingsLax9042]

And Faber day!

 

[Mmmmmmma1234]

145 is significantly more viable than its been in a long time, but it desperately needs to be in one place. Ideally not the UFC, and instead Belltor, as that allows people like Sarah Kaufman and Leslie Smith to help populate it as well.

Unfortunately, Kayla Harrison likely means that the UFC keeps a 145 Division for the foreseeable future.

145 is great when u fill it with enough women who could also make 135.
I always favoured the ufc cutting 135 over 145 most of them would be better at that weight class.

 

[GBJohn]

Wow, that was a bad stoppage. Herb Dean is way past his sell by date.
Note, I'm not saying it wouldn't have been stopped, just not at that point.

 

[Rizz]

Wow, that was a bad stoppage. Herb Dean is way past his sell by date.
Note, I'm not saying it wouldn't have been stopped, just not at that point.

I agree it was definitely an early stoppage. Aspen had no chance of winning that fight anyway. After watching the Sijara fight they give her this one? She was pretty much set up to fail.

 

[PurpleStorm]

 

[dim_]

Ariels a fucking moron



Go up to 145? Did he not notice how tiny she was compared to Germaine?

She should still be fighting at 125 let alone struggling to make 145.


She needs to decide if she wants to be an athlete or if she just wants to walk her dogs. If shes serious about a career in the UFC she needs to get to the PI and get her diet in check

 

[Sausage_Carius]

Herb saved her and I'm glad he did. She was about a half second from eating a huge blow and god knows what that would have done to her.

 

[dim_]

in other news, Ketlen not cleared to train as of end of May

 

[PolarBearPaulVarelans]

Shout-outs to the lovely and talented Brianna Van Buren for making me one of the biggest paydays in my gambling career.

I had never watched her fight until earlier today, but I saw that the betting line was close for her fight against Souza, and since I had seen Souza, figured I would watched Van Buren's 4 most recent fights.

To my delight and surprise, Van Buren impressed me immensely. Not only is she one of the best wrestlers at 115, but she had among the most refined, skillfull stand-up, in terms of her strikes as well as movement and defense.

If Van Buren had 3 more inches of height and reach, I would confidently call her a future UFC world champion at 115. As it is, she is MERELY a fighter who will be top 5 very, very soon and presents a serious match-up problem to every single fighter in the division.

I rate Souza highly, but I put a huge amount on Van Buren at roughly even odds (-105), and unlike some other disappointments I've bet big on (Sabina Mazo against Moroz comes to mind), Van Buren didn't even make me sweat.

Speaking of which, Souza has really been royally screwed over by the UFC.

First, they make her fight a heavily "supplemented" opponent in Frota who is an ENTIRE weight class heavier than her. Souza not only wins, but she even fades a crappy judge who gave the contest to Frota.

Her reward? Facing the most talented young fighter in her division making her UFC debut in Van Buren.

Souza is easily a top 10 fighter at 115, but with her continuing to be screwed over like this, you would never know it.

As for the main event, almost everyone on the gambling forum was on GDR huge. I made a more modest bet on GDR than most, figuring that

1. Ladd would immediately look to clinch.
2. Ladd's team would at least prepare her for avoiding GDR's strikes. GDR is one of the 2-3 best WMMA strikers in the world, yes, but her game is fairly "simple". She throws a solid jab. She throws a nice straight right. Sometimes she throws the jab AND then the right. There is a little more to it, obviously, but GDR is a great example of how mastering the fundamentals is way more important than learning fancy or "advanced" strikes.

However, neither 1. nor 2. occurred. Shout-outs to the "MMA Gold" team!

 

[det_regnar_på_vår_kärlek]

I don't think the Ladd stoppage was bad. It felt shocking to watch how amateurish Ladd's striking looked in comparison to Germaine's. The composure, movement, efficiency... It took only a few seconds, but it was everything one needed to see from this fight imo.

 

[Xuh]

Well that was embarrassing huh? I feel shame for all involved (including the matchmakers and Herb Dean) (excluding GDR). Not a great look for WMMA either to have a rare female headliner plucked from relative obscurity for the special occasion and extra hype push lose in such manner (add to that the weigh in shenanigans). Can't say it was wholly unexpected either (hence blaming the matchmakers).

It brings me back to a big problem at 135 and 145 being how short the ladder is, if you're young and good you beat everyone around you up and rise to the top too quickly where very experienced and skilled ppl are waiting to annihilate your face. We'll see the same in a couple of weeks with Cyborg vs Spencer. I'm already sad in advance

Oh and (self hi five) all my pics were right the other page even the method of outcome. Except for Kallinidou (which was a fanboi pick anyway - I haven't seen the fight but it sounds like she got outgrappled in the big leagues again) and Nicco - she did great in round 1, but then made a steady stream of dumb decisions in rd 2 and 3. I guess, lack of ring time is to blame. Sad that she lost her lineal FW title like that especially to Pena because Pena already lost to Shev, which will make claming Val is a paper champ more difficult. I will try and continue anyway, for the lolz
(edit - silly me, the fight was at BW, of course Nicco is still tr00 FW champ and Val is paper champ)

 

[Xuh]

in other news, Ketlen not cleared to train as of end of May

that sucks, i don't think some ppl realise how long it can take to come back from those kids of injuries (there was a thread asking where she was in the week with remarks like 'it can't be that long' and 'maybe she got USADA'd').

I went to the world wrestling championships in 2017, there were 3 major knee injuries for the women (Russia's 2 best (which ended up costing the coach his job when they won 0 medals in 2018) and a Turkish girl in the medal matches against another Russian who blew her own knee months later incidentally). 2 of those were given 2019 as a possible return date but are nowhere to be seen (if they ever will be seen again), while the other (who was rare non-azn junior world champ making her first apperance at the adult worlds - got drawn against the olympic champ in her first match! and had her leg borked) is just making a tentative return this year. & those have access via 'olympic funds' to top international surgeons etc.

It's not that uncommon to have 2yr+ recovery times for big knee injuries, plus there is a greatly higher chance of complications and reinjury for female athletes. I'm surprised we don't see more lonnnng layoffs like that in MMA (Evinger completely rekt her knee recently and came back 6-8 months later... then again look at her last 2 fights, is she really back).

Hopefully she can get back and pick up the pace to where she was before but it'd take 2-3 fights for her to regain her position I think, and they absolutely should give her some can as her comeback so she can regain some confidence, I've seen ppl saying she should jump straight into the title short or contender shot which is nuts IMO (and again comes back to that short ladder at 135...)

 

[Eater of Souls]

Yeah, knee injuries are terrible. And what sucks is that no one knee injury is exactly like another. So when treating it (meaning post-surgical treatment, recovery and physical therapy) you are not just dealing with the injury and surgical trauma but the pattern of abuse (for discussion purposes here, training counts as abuse) that lead to the injury. Often when a joint goes it was what lead up to the injury being more of a problem than the single action that resulted in obvious trauma. I mean, sure, if someone blows it with a knee bar that is one thing, but someone's knee giving out during a takedown is generally the result of multiple factors that resulted in instability and weakness. Often pour S&C training. (what some people seem to ignore in MMA is that the first order of business when coaching is preventing injury and building stability). Another reason why I am glad for the UFC PI.

 

[vgff]

sucks to see Aspen Ladd lose, but not too surprised.
stoppage was a tad early but i doubt the outcome would've changed.
i see people blaming it on the weight cut issue, but i don't know. she looked just as bad on the scale before the Evinger fight and looked phenomenal on fight night.
unsurprisingly, nobody cared about the early Faber stoppage. certainly helps to be a big beloved name making a comeback in his hometown.
but after all, she's just 24. have a lot of time to get better

Van Buren looked good as expected, but can't help but think about how far she can take it before her size becomes a real issue

 

[vgff]

Yeah, knee injuries are terrible. And what sucks is that no one knee injury is exactly like another. So when treating it (meaning post-surgical treatment, recovery and physical therapy) you are not just dealing with the injury and surgical trauma but the pattern of abuse (for discussion purposes here, training counts as abuse) that lead to the injury. Often when a joint goes it was what lead up to the injury being more of a problem than the single action that resulted in obvious trauma. I mean, sure, if someone blows it with a knee bar that is one thing, but someone's knee giving out during a takedown is generally the result of multiple factors that resulted in instability and weakness. Often pour S&C training. (what some people seem to ignore in MMA is that the first order of business when coaching is preventing injury and building stability). Another reason why I am glad for the UFC PI.

yeah ACL and PCL injuries sucks. the strength of those ligaments isn't proportional to how important they are in the knee. and when they get re-injured it's even harder to recover the 2nd or 3rd time

 

[Mittens]

Wine, women and song occupied me so efficiently last night that I missed the whole UFC card - now knowing the results there isn't any reason to check out Ladd/GDR (i'll just find the gif). Were the other two women's fights both in the undercard? Worth seeing spoiled?

Lee's thoughts about her fight: