I dont give a shit ( respectfully) of anyone's podcast but mine. Of course, just because you're a healthy favorite mean you automatically win. This is mma and the fights have to be fought. I dont and didnt see any advantages for Michelle and Vegas ( who I do trust regardless the outcome- especially if you know how to read AN OPENING line) agreed by making her an enormous -335 fave[ opened].
I said Johanna may have gotten complacent. I'm not saying she "cant" further evolve.....its just my opinion that she wont. This still makes her an upper tier straw- I just dont see her winning title and she " might " still be top 5.
You said MW was a favorable style matchup. That's factually wrong. That's not the same thing as what you are saying here which is Joanna should win. I agree with you there and regardless of what you think of other podcasts and the analysis from other MMA commentators they agreed with you as well.
However style matchups are a specific thing. Joanna's early career style of being a pressure fighter was more favorable to beating out fighters. Case in point see her first fight vs Lima.
Joanna needed to change her style if she wanted to continue to be successful specifically as a champion in 5 round fights. However her current style can result in closer rounds under the 10 point Must system vs her old style.
See her first fight vs Claudia. That was Joanna as a pressure fighter and she lost good chunks of that fight due to her opponent being a bigger more explosive pressure fighter themselves. She arguably lost that one. Fast forward to their second fight and Joanna was more of an out fighter by that point and sapped Claudia in a 5 rounder but lost the first few rounds more decisively then their first fight.
I'm not going to go through Joanna's entire career. Suffice it to say her style changed to adjust to pressure fighters as she faced 4 of them in a row ending with Andrade. By that point her style was deficient and filled with gaping holes when dealing with out fighters and she ended up facing one of her worst style matchups in that regard vs Rose.
The Tecia fight was interesting because again she is an in-out fighter like Rose but not as dangerous. Without adjustments that could have been Joanna's 3rd loss in a row all to in-out fighters. They weren't even sure she won the 2nd round of that fight and some argue she didn't because of the last few seconds of their exchange. This was still the version of Joanna that fought Rose but more careful and she brought consistent clinch fighting back in.
Michelle is a counter out fighter, arguably the best version of herself at the moment, so again on paper it's a bad style matchup without adjustments. The Joanna that faced Rose could have arguably lost to this version of Michelle in razor thin rounds or if she won it would not have been dominant as Michelle would have more likely been able to land more consistently.
This version of Joanna tools the current version of Rose. Rose and her team are smart to spend her time on clinch fighting and wrestling and that's exactly what she just said in her last interview.
Should win is a meaningless and useless statement without analyzing why. It's what results in the odds stacking against Rose both times she faced Joanna.
