Here's the match video of Marina Rodriguez vs Michelle Waterson from last night's UFC show in Las Vegas. This fight was scheduled for July in Abu Dhabi. When Cory Sandhagen vs TJ Dillashaw was pulled from this show, the UFC approached Marina and Michelle about moving this fight up to the main event of this show. This a couple of weeks ago. Marina asked for the fight to be at Flyweight. She didn't think she could make Strawweight on short notice. And the UFC had to sign Marina to a new contract and she needed a work visa which she wasn't going to need for Abu Dhabi. She got her visa on Tuesday. Marina trains at Thai Brasil in Florianoplis, Brazil with coach Marcio Malko. Marina is a Muay Thai fighter comparable to Joanna Jedrzejczyk except Marina doesn't have Joanna's takedown defense. Michelle is undersized at Strawweight which makes her even more undersized at Flyweight. Michelle's best hope for a win is to take Marina down early in the fight, sit on her and tire her out. But Michelle doesn't try to take Marina down in the first three rounds. When Michelle does take Marina down in round four, Marina can't escape and Michelle wins the round. I scored the fight 49-46 for Marina. Two of the judges scored it the same and the third scored it 48-47. When a fighter has an obvious weakness, that's something to exploit. And Michelle didn't do that until it was too late. It doesn't make sense. Marina said afterwards that she would like to fight Joanna. Of course she does because it would be a kickboxing match. I don't know if Joanna would fight her. A possible next opponent would be the winner of the upcoming fight Carla Esparza vs Yan Xioanan. Carla beat Marina by split decision last year. And Yan is 6-0 in the UFC. She may a be a better striker than Marina. Take your pick. Enjoy the video!
That really is to bad for Waterson. It's to bad she did not take Marina down and then submit her and get a win. All I can say is I hope Waterson learns from this and has better luck in her next fight. Good luck to Marina, she needs to get better with her ground game or she will be taken down and submitted sooner or later, probably sooner. Thanks so much Frank.
ReplyDeleteIt's to bad Michelle did not take her down and try to get a submission and use her better ground game to win this fight. To bad, I like her. But I want to see her win and win big in the UFC. Hopefully in her next fight she will. David.
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