Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Carla Esparza vs Maryna Moroz

Here's the match video of Carla Esparza vs Maryna Moroz from last night's UFC show in Oklahoma City. Carla was the first UFC Strawweight Champion. After losing the title, Carla had shoulder surgery and she just hasn't looked good since returning especially losing her last match to Randa Markos. Obviously Carla wants to get back into the title picture. But it's questionable if she's good enough anymore. She needs a big win. Maryna is from the Ukraine. She's mainly a boxer. So is her husband. She looked pretty good when she first came to the UFC. Not so much since then. She hasn't even looked good in her wins. Maryna has a big height advantage. As a striker, one would think she would use that to her advantage. But she seems content with doing as little as possible while still winning the fight. That worked in her last fight. Neither of them did much in round one. But I thought Maryna was slightly more effective so I scored the round 10-9 for Maryna. In the other two rounds, Carla was able to get her timing and that resulted in several takedowns. The problem was she didn't do much after the takedowns. That was mostly because Maryna kept her from doing anything. You don't score points for that. On one occasion, ref Mario Yamasaki told them to get busy or he's stand them up. Carla says "She's holding my wrist". Yamasaki said that was her problem. The whole fight was like that. Maryna was terrible and Carla was marginally better. She won by unanimous decision. I scored it 29-28 for Carla. So you know how fighters are. A win is a win. That's what Carla was saying afterwards. She thinks one more win gets her a title shot. I'm sure it won't surprise you that I don't buy that. She needed a dominant win. She didn't get it. A squeaker like that doesn't cut it. She would get clobbered by a really good fighter, even her BFF Felice Herrig. Several years ago, I never would have thought that Felice would be higher than Carla on the food chain. But there you have it. Enjoy the video!