Big Bad Blog Video Theater-Poliana Botelho vs Lauren Mueller

Here's the match video of Poliana Botelho vs Lauren Mueller from last night's UFC show in Atlanta. The weight cut to Strawweight was giving Poliana problems. So she decided to move up to Flyweight. She trains at Nova Uniao in Brazil with Andre Pederneiras. She is mainly a striker but Poliana said during the week that she has been training with UFC Bantamweight Ketlen Vieira to improve her ground game. That could pay dividends in the future. Lauren is also a striker. She trains at Alliance in San Diego with Eric Del Fierro. Both fighters are coming off of losses. Which one will bounce back? And Poliana could be a different fighter at Flyweight. A minute into round one, Poliana hit a body kick that hurt Lauren. She tried to hide it. But Poliana went after her and scored a takedown. She didn't do much with it but her top control was enough to win the round 10-9. Round two was similar though by the end of the round Poliana was getting tired and trying to kill time in the clinch. I also scored that round 10-9 for Poliana. So now Lauren needs a finish. Pederneiras told Poliana that she's winning and she just needs to kill time. She tries to do that with clinching on the fence and the ref keeps breaking it up. Lauren is scoring with strikes. She knocks Poliana down. And instead of letting her get up so she can hit her some more, she follows her to the mat and full guard. That was a huge mistake and Poliana was able to hold on to win the fight 29-28. All three judges scored it that way. I don't know if Lauren could have finished her. But her chances were better standing. She should be kicking herself for that mistake. I saw some improvement from Poliana especially in attempting takedowns. Now she needs to work on submissions. And she needs to work on her endurance too. It looks like Ketlen has helped her already. Enjoy the video!