Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Juliana Lima vs Ericka Almeida

Here's the match video of Juliana Lima vs Ericka Almeida from last night's UFC show in Brazil. It aired on UFC Fight Pass so a lot of fans may not have seen it. Well, you may want to skip it. Ericka is a Jungle Fight champ brought in on short notice when Jessica Penne was given a title shot. I watched a couple of her fights. She's aggressive but she just fought six weeks ago. Juliana won her last fight over Nina Ansaroff using the hated lay and pray strategy. At the start of round one, Ericka was unlucky and then she made mistakes that cost her the fight. Ericka took Juliana down but Juliana landed on top. So that was unlucky. But then Ericka makes the mistake of getting out from the bottom but then she allowed Juliana to take top position again. Of course the problem with that is the judges perceive top position as winning. The success of the lay and pray strategy depends on the ref's leniency. Ref Camila Albuquerque warned Juliana a couple of times. But every time she warned her, Juliana threw a couple of punches so the ref wouldn't stand them up and she finally did stand them up near the end of the round. Some refs are less tolerant of lay and pray and most fighters will abandon it if the ref won't allow it. But Juliana used lay and pray to win her last fight. She wasn't even trying to finish. Round two was the same and I don't think Albuquerque even warned Juliana during that round. So Ericka needs a finish in round three but she's tentative because she afraid she'll get taken down again. Juliana can just cruise to a unanimous decision win. I scored it 30-27 for Juliana but a lot of fighters don't understand that a lay and pray win is a cheap win. She shouldn't even go up the rankings for that...but she will. One of the judges scored the fight 30-25 for Juliana which is ridiculous. Ericka and her trainer will watch this fight again and see how dumb she was. And as Juliana goes up the ladder, she may have to find another strategy as she has now won two fights with lay and pray. That should raise a red flag for future opponents. Enjoy the video!