Alright, these are going to go out later than I anticipated, but better late than never I suppose. The co-main event on Saturday night will feature women's strawweight champion Rose Namajunas defending her belt in a rematch with former champion Zhang Weili. As of the writing of this post on Friday morning, this is the closest fight on the main card according to the betting odds, which have it at virtually a coin flip right now. Neither woman has fought since their first bout at UFC 261 this past April. That fight saw Rose capture the title for a second time by knocking out Weili with a high kick in 1:18. The UFC passed on a Rose vs Carla Esparza rematch and instead did the immediate rematch between Rose and Weili, but I don't think anyone is complaining too much there. Without further ado, let's get right into it.
I don't think it's that I didn't know, but maybe I just didn't realize that for someone who has accomplished as much as Rose Namajunas has in her career, she really doesn't have a ton of experience. She has 14 professional fights, 3 exhibition fights from the ultimate fighter, and 4 amateur fights. That's 21 total fights. By comparison, Kayla Harrison, one of the biggest MMA free agents in recent memory, after a 52 fight judo career, already has 12 professional MMA career dating back to only 2018. I know the level of competition isn't the same, but still, Rose has done so much in so little cage time. Her only losses came to Tecia Torres in Invicta, Carla Esparza in the TUF finale, Karolina Kowalkiewicz, and Jessica Andrade to lose her title. Only the Andrade loss has come in the last 4 years and she was able to avenge that loss in her next appearance after Andrade had lost the title to Weili. That win, along with her win over Weili to recapture the title in April, is the entirety of her current run, just 2 in a row. However, she has won 5 of her last 6. While we saw Rose capturing some submissions early on in her career, she has taken a more standup based approach in recent years. I will expect that this fight will primarily take place on the feet, but don't be surprised if Rose does at least try to mix it up if we get deeper into the fight. While I think Rose can win on the feet, as she's proved many times in the past, she doesn't have huge power, with only 2 career knockouts.
Zhang Weili on the other hand, is extremely powerful with 10 career knockouts coming into this one. She also has 7 career submissions, but only one of them since joining the UFC. I think there are more questions surrounding Weili in this fight overall than we have with Rose. First, losing the title in her last fight was only the second loss of her career and the first since her very first pro fight. She had gone 21 fights in a row without a loss of any kind and definitely none of the magnitude of losing the title on the stage she lost it. We have to see how Weili responds to this adversity, which is something she really hasn't had to do before. There's also the issue with the crowd that will likely exist. After the last fight, she said publicly that when she was booed by the crowd, that it negatively impacted her performance. Knowing sports fans, when someone admits something like this, that only will encourage fans to boo her more and that wasn't really something they needed in the first place because Rose is already such a fan favorite and would have had the crowd on her side regardless. If being booed by fans is something that really does bother Weili and effects her performance, I wouldn't have advised her to admit that to everyone, but that's why I'm writing this in bed after class and not employed by a fight camp. The final question I have, which I think is being really overlooked because I honestly don't know if I've heard anyone bring it up is: how does Weili actually respond to the knockout itself? I assume she is feeling good and is fully prepared and everything and I've never been knocked out before, but I have to imagine that changes someone to some degree, especially with as vicious of a high kick as she took. The fact that I started the section on Zhang Weili with a lot of questions may lead some to believe that I prefer Rose or am biased in some way, but I really don't think that's the case. I pose questions simply as questions. Obviously, I'm not some insider or anything so I don't have of the answers, but just things I think about as this fight approaches. Now, there are several reasons that we saw Weili as a pretty solid favorite over Rose less than a year ago. Weili is the bigger, stronger, and more powerful athlete by and large. Weili is a more active and aggressive striker, again with more power than Rose. I don't foresee her really trying or landing any takedowns, but that brings me to my next point. She has been preparing for this fight with the one and only Henry Cejudo. This would lead one to believe that she would be looking to wrestle more in this fight, which I don't necessarily think is the worst idea. Weili only lands takedowns at a 23% clip, so any help in that area would be a really nice weapon to have for her. I do doubt however that one training camp with Cejudo would be enough to see Weili come out and really dominate this fight with wrestling, but it's not impossible either. I still think the best route to victory for Weili will be to tighten up her defense to avoid the type of shot that knocked her out the first time and then to impose her will on Rose and hit her with her much more powerful strikes.
So, what does this translate to in terms of the type of fight we will see? Well, I think it goes without saying that it will be primarily a kick boxing fight, but that's the easy part. The real question and one of the biggest keys is: who will be leading and pressuring? Traditionally, that has been Weili, but that isn't really what we saw in their first fight. They both sort of stood their ground and were feeling each other out without anyone really putting the pressure on when Rose landed the fight ending kick. Weili has been the more active striker in her career to this point, but has also taken more damage. Weili has also just taken more damage overall in recent time. That's not to say Rose doesn't take damage, but she hasn't been horribly active for quite awhile. This will be the first time that Rose has fought twice in a single year since 2017. Weili on the other hand has been brutally knocked out by Rose and took as much damage as any winner in recent memory when she defeated Joanna Jedrzejczyk at UFC 248 in what is considered by many to be the best fight in the history of women's mixed martial arts. The second key to me will be which fighter can better make this an MMA fight. If one of these two can mix in enough effective grappling, that could be the key to stealing a round or two and swinging the momentum of what is a really even and close fight. It's hard to say who that really favors because Rose has had better wrestling success in her career but Weili is the more physical fighter and her work with Cejudo will only help.
I think that's it from me on this one. This fight really could go either way and I wouldn't be surprised. Like I said above, the keys for me are who can put the other on the back foot more often and who can mix in the grappling more effectively. I really don't know who I think that will benefit more. So, what do you guys think? Who comes away with the win in this one? How does the fight look and what did I miss? Let me know in the comments and thanks for reading.
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