Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Juliana Lima vs Nina Ansaroff

Here's the match video of Juliana Lima vs Nina Ansaroff from last night's UFC show in Uberlandia, Brazil. The last time we saw Nina Ansaroff she was pounding out a win over Munah Holland on the Dec. 2013 Invicta show. She was an alternate on TUF 20. But I think she's a better fighter than some of the girls who made the show. She says she was thinking about retirement when she got called by the UFC. Juliana Lima was one of the 11 fighter contracts purchased from Invicta last year. They decided not to have her on TUF because she doesn't speak much English. Then she got pounded by Joanna Jedrzecyk in her UFC debut. She claimed she wasn't feeling well. Ugh! I hate excuses. Nina completely underperforms in this fight. And I think she had bad luck too. Juliana won the fight but the only thing she showed me is that she knows how to lay and pray. Nina is supposed to be a striker but she never got her act together. Early in round one, Nina stumbled trying to break away from a Muay Thai clinch and Juliana jumped on her. Does that even count as a takedown? Juliana did nothing from top position. But Nina didn't do enough from the bottom and many times judges look at top position favourably. The ref threatened to stand them up a couple of times. But Juliana did just enough to prevent that. Nina gets her in a standing guillotine. Then she takes her down but Nina's on the bottom again. A guillotine is a very low percentage submission and she would have been better off disengaging and striking with her. The fight was stopped for Nina's illegal upkick. I scored the round 10-9 for Juliana and I expected the judges to score it that way too. Top position is important even if the fighter does nothing with it. Round two was very similar. Juliana grabbed Nina's leg and she wasn't able to shake her. Down she went. Both attempted ineffective submissions. And the ref finally tires of Juliana's stalling in top position. I also scored this round 10-9 Juliana. In round three, Nina needs a finish. But you wouldn't know it by the way she was fighting. There was a lot of stalling on the fence. Juliana was tired and playing it safe because she won the first two rounds. But Nina didn't do enough and all three judges scored the fight 29-28 for Juliana. I scored it that way too though I didn't like her lay and pray strategy. Like Kenny Florian said, maybe it was the UFC jitters. Not a great performance by either fighter. Check out the video.