Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Maryna Moroz vs Danielle Taylor

Here's the match video of Maryna Moroz vs Danielle Taylor from last night's UFC show in Salt Lake City, UT. Danielle was a late replacement after Justine Kish broke her hand. I guess the thing we all noticed is that Maryna is a lot taller than Danielle. But Maryna and her husband were concerned about Danielle's power. So their strategy was to keep away from Danielle and roll the dice with the judges. It's not a strategy that results in a quality fight. So round one was light sparring. Maryna controlled the center of the cage but did nothing with that control. Danielle couldn't get close enough to do anything. The solution to this problem is the ref can warn them to step it up. We saw this recently when John McCarthy warned Sara McMann and Jessica Eye after one round of nothing. Most refs won't do this and in this case Herb Dean warned them late in round three when he should have warned them much earlier in the fight. There is also the reluctance of judges to score tie rounds. I scored round one 9-9 because they did nothing. Round two wasn't much better except Danielle landed one big punch. And round three was like round one to the point where Dean warned them to engage. In the end, Maryna won by split decision because one of the judges inexplicably scored the fight in her favour 30-27. I think it should have been a no contest due to inactivity. I think if Dean had warned them much earlier and threatened to take off a point, that would have gotten results. In her post match interview, Maryna and her husband admitted the strategy was deliberate. Rolling the dice hoping for a split decision from the judges is very risky strategy. And it results in a crappy fight. I guess a win is a win. But that kind of win doesn't do Maryna any favours especially since I think she's ranked too high already. Check out the fight video for yourself.