Review of The Ultimate Fighter 20 episode 12

Last night's episode of The Ultimate Fighter 20 had the semi final fights. The winners will square off for the UFC Women's Strawweight Championship on Friday. Both fights are set for three five minute rounds. The first fight has two former Invicta champs facing off, Carla Esparza vs Jessica Penne. They are good friends so Carla has misgivings about fighting Jessica. I have covered Carla her entire career and one of her flaws is she tends to overthink strategy to her detriment. She talks about keeping the fight standing because she is concerned about Jessica's ground game. Look, Carla is a four time collegiate All American wrestler. That's her game and that will get her a dominant win. Instead we got three rounds of boxing. It wasn't even kickboxing because neither fighter threw many kicks. I gave Carla the edge because she threw more combinations and Jessica could only throw one punch at a time. Neither has the punching power to break an egg. Carla also scored a couple of inconsequential takedowns. She won but that is not championship strategy. The second fight has Rose Namajunas vs Randa Markos. I liked Rose in this fight because of her quickness. She also likes to finish. Like I always say, fighters don't get paid by the hour. After some feeling out, Rose goes for a clinch and I can see how much quicker she is than Randa. This leads to a takedown and that leads to Rose's second kimura finish in a row. She ain't messing around. The title match will have Rose vs Carla. This will air Friday night on Fox Sports 1 in the US and Sportsnet 360 in Canada. After two UFC Fight Pass prelims, the televised prelims will begin at 7PM Eastern. It should be a fun night. I picked Rose to win the title before the show began so obviously I think she'll win. And remember, I don't look at rankings. I just evaluate the fighters and I liked Rose from the beginning. Enjoy the video!