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| Juliana Lima Jessica Penne |
Combat Sports reported yesterday that Jessica Penne vs Juliana Lima has been added to the May 30 UFC show at the Goiania Arena in Goiania, Brazil. Juliana confirmed this on her Instagram. Yesterday someone asked me if I thought that Joanna Jedrzejczyk's five inch height advantage over Carla Esparza made it a mismatch. It's funny how some bring this up after the fight is over when no one brought this up before the fight. Of course this is ludicrous. Fighters like Joanna will come from a different weight class (125) to grab that UFC brass ring. And she did. To discredit her accomplishment afterwards because of height is ridiculous. But I guess that's what dopes do these days. I bring this up because Jessica Penne came to the UFC after she was the Invicta Atomweight Champion. So over there she fought at 105 but she wanted to be in the UFC. Jessica is 5'5" so she might be considered a little tall for 105. There are are no rules for fighter height. You're not too tall if you can make the weight. And a fighter isn't too short if comfortable fighting at a weight. You'll notice I never mention the height of a fighter because it's not relevant. Jessica's fighting style is very similar to her friend Carla Esparza. Both are from California. She's very good on the ground. Carla beat Jessica in the TUF house and then Jessica won a split decision over Randa Markos on the TUF Finale. That was probably the fight of the night. I think she has improved since I first saw her in Bellator a few years ago. Juliana was supposed to be on TUF but it was decided her English wasn't good enough to be on the show. She's 1-1 in the UFC. In her debut, she lost to Joanna Jedrzejczyk and then made excuses afterwards. I hate that. Then she won over Nina Ansaroff in November by unanimous decision. Neither fighter looked very good. Juliana won with a lay and pray strategy that I don't think will work against Jessica. I didn't think much of Juliana when she was in Invicta and she has done nothing to change my tune. I don't believe lay and pray wins are really wins. I see Jessica winning by submission.
THE TRUTH ABOUT MMA'S DANGEROUS WEIGHT GAME
ReplyDeletehttp://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentary/article/11711953/the-truth-mma-dangerous-weight-game
Women's sports already have trouble attracting talent, why make it harder by requiring them to dehydrate themselves in addition to training? It might make sense if it avoided mismatches but it doesn't. If Jedrzejczyk is going to fight at 120 or 130 why make her drop to 115?
She wasn't forced to drop to 115. She CHOSE to drop to 115 because the UFC is where the money is. According to her manager, Joanna planned to drop to 115 anyway. It just happened sooner than expected. Nobody complained about that match beforehand so to complain about it afterwards is moronic. And Carla was the betting favourite. I'm responding to you to let you know that your comments won't be published in the future. This blog is not a democracy. It's my playpen and I'm not interested in your uninformed opinions. You don't understand the MMA business so STFU. I repeat. don't bother to respond. It will be deleted.
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