Jessica Andrade to face Liz Carnouche at July 27 UFC show

Jessica Andrade

With Miesha Tate getting the coaching slot in The Ultimate Fighter 18, Liz Carmouche needed a new opponent for the July 27 show in Seattle. Ariel Helwani of MMA Fighting reported yesterday that the new opponent is 21 year old Brazilian Jessica Andrade (pronounced Ahn-drah-day). Jessica is a native of Umuarama, Parama, Brazil and she trains at Parama Vale Tudo. It looks like she will be the first member of that gym to fight in the UFC. Her record is 9-2 and none of her wins have gone the distance. She likes to finish. The guillotine choke seems to be a favourite. Her latest fight was a win over Milana Dudieva on the Apr. 14 Pro FC show in Rostov-On-Don, Russia. This was Jessica's first fight outside Brazil and she was fighting Pro FC's top female fighter. So Jessica is going into enemy territory. Russian companies have been known to protect their top fighters and the refs have a quick trigger finger for stoppages. Milana came out at the start of round one swinging for the fences thinking Jessica would be nervous and fold like a cheap suitcase. Jessica's response was to drop Milana on her ass. The rest of the round was fairly even. But in round two, Jessica took control and scored with ground and pound. She won with a guillotine choke at 4:34 of round two. It was a very impressive performance considering the circumstances. I have posted the video so you can check it out for yourself. I believe that sometimes you learn more from a fighter's losses than her wins. So I watched Jessica's loss to Jennifer Maia on the Dec. 15 Samurai TV show in Curitiba, Brazil. Jennifer is a boxer and she uses her boxing to grind out wins as we saw when she beat Zoila Gurgel on the Apr. 5 Invicta show. Jessica doesn't seem to have an answer for Jennifer's fighting style and Jennifer grinded out a unanimous decision. And that's good news for Liz Carmouche as her fighting style is similar to Jennifer Maia. So Liz should be the favourite but remember Milana Dudieva was the favourite too and you saw how that turned out. Enjoy the video!