Big Bad Blog Video Theater-JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana

Here's the match video of JJ Aldrich vs Polyana Viana from last night's UFC show in Los Angeles. This fight was on the main card but it should have been on the prelims. Polyana won her UFC debut easily. She is obviously a BJJ whiz. But I don't think we saw enough of her to know what else she can do. JJ is a points fighter using a keep away strategy. The good thing about her is she has good coaching and unlike other fighters, she does what she is told. What this fight told us about Polyana is if she can't get a quick takedown, she will have problems. Her striking and especially her defense is below par. She needs to work on that because there are plenty of UFC Strawweights very similar to JJ. BJJ is king in Brazil but she needs to improve in other areas. The judges scored this fight 2X29-28 and 30-27 for JJ. the 30-27 was announced as 29-27  but I saw the scorecard and it was 30-27. I thought the first two rounds were a wash. But judges are encouraged to not score tie rounds. Most of round one was an endless clinch. And you'll notice Joe Rogan questions why JJ initiates the clinch because it's not what she usually does. Should Herb Dean have broken up the clinch? It was just active enough that he wasn't going to do that. But neither of them did anything in the clinch. It was a lot of nothing. So I scored the round 9-9. The only thing we saw in round two is Polyana getting tired which led to JJ winning round three and the fight. So I also thought round two was 9-9 and JJ won round three 10-9. So I scored it 28-27 for JJ. That's the kind of score a crappy fight deserves. It still doesn't make me think JJ can beat anyone good. JJ didn't dominate Polyana. She just outpointed her. Points fighting will catch up to her. And Polyana needs to keep her hands higher among other things. She needs to learn how to use strikes to set up her BJJ. At age 24, she has potential if she can improve her striking. Enjoy the video!