Bellator started their women's 115lb tournament last night in Hollywood, FL with two matches. The first match was Megumi Fujii vs Carla Esparza. As we all know, Carla was a last minute replacement for the injured Angela Magana. Carla was a two time All American wrestler at Menlo College. So obviously she has some skills. The problem is she only turned pro in February so she's a little inexperienced. When asked by Sergio Non of USA Today about the last minute replacement, Megumi said it was no big deal. But her manager Josh Barnett knew about Carla and showed Megumi some video of her matches. The match went pretty much as expected. Carla tried to hang in there in the first round but didn't do much. Megumi was patient and was just looking for an opening. By the three minute mark of round one, Megumi figured her out and Carla barely escaped from an ankle lock. Then Megumi took her down and Carla went into survival mode. And then Megumi went for another ankle lock as the round ended. What was interesting is that Carla attempted the takedown. But Megumi is so confident and relaxed on the ground that she just rolled through it. The same thing happened in round two as Megumi transitioned a Carla takedown into an armbar and that was it. I hope the other fighters in the tournament took note. Supposedly the standard wisdom is Megumi is weak standing. But she's tough to hit because she moves so well. Then if the opponent takes her down, she's slick enough to roll through it into a submission attempt. 21-0 doesn't happen by accident. Megumi will face the winner of the Aug. 26 match between Lisa Ward and Aisling Daly. Here's the match video. You will get a popup ad and then the start button will turn green. Don't blame me. I would never use Mega Video because of the popups.
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