Ok, so this is going to be the start of a series where I'm going to go through each UFC weight class and sort of do like a tier list or a category sorting type of exercise. It will make more sense once I start, but at the end, it should serve as sort of a summary of what's to come for the division in 2022. Let's get into it.
Champion - Rose Namajunas
We'll start at the top of the division and that is Rose Namajunas. Rose is a strong champion and is coming off of a year with 2 wins over Zhang Weili. These champion sections will probably end up being pretty short for the most part as I'm not going to do a full preview for them, but just sort of my assessment of their stability as champion. I think Rose is a strong champion who isn't going to be easy to unseat.
Title Challenger - Carla Esparza
The first challenger in this division should be Carla Esparza. She's earned the title shot and her history with Rose makes her the most compelling challenger. She's defeated Rose in the past in a fight that was for the inaugural strawweight title and Esparza used her experience in that fight to get the better of Rose. This time around, I think her age may work against her as Rose has grown into herself as a competitor and will be much tougher this time around.
Contenders - Marina Rodriguez, Yan Xiaonan, Mackenzie Dern, Tecia Torres, Zhang Weili
In my estimation, these four women are the most likely to be fighting in title eliminator type of fights and potentially getting the title shot that comes after Carla Esparza, with Weili momentarily heading to the back of the line. Rose's history suggests she'll only fight twice in a calendar year, meaning there's only room for one potential challenger beyond Esparza. Obviously, we can't assume Rose wins that fight and if she doesn't, then maybe she would get an immediate rematch, but if not, I think these 4 are the most likely candidates. The UFC seems to really be behind Marina Rodriguez and she's taken advantage of every opportunity. She's looked excellent for a few fights in a row now and I would be excited to see her fight for a title because her striking is as good as their is in this division.
Up and Comers - Amanda Ribas and Amanda Lemos
To me, "up and comers" means fighters who likely won't fight for a title until 2023 at the earliest, but have the potential to get there and win it. That's where I think both Ribas and Lemos are at right now. They're outside the top 5 right now and will need one or two fights to even get there and once they're in, they probably need another win or two to get to the title. Title defenses just don't happen frequently enough to see one division go through 3 or 4 challengers in a year. We just saw Lemos fight a few weeks ago and her power is tremendous. She started to tire towards the end of the Angela Hill fight, but that's something that can be improved. I like the direction she is going with her career a lot. Ribas also has a lot of skills that could lead her to being a future champion. Her ground game is one of the best in the division right there with Mackenzie Dern. Also like Dern, her striking needs some work, but it has shown a lot of promise. She got picked apart by Marina Rodriguez on the feet, but so would most. Her last fight against Virna Jandiroba showed a lot progress in the stand up and she could be ready to make that jump into the elites of the division in the later part of 2022 and potentially fight for the belt in 2023.
Prospects - Cheyanne Vlismas and Loopy Godinez
The prospects section is for fighters outside of the rankings who I think have shown potential and could see themselves in increasingly bigger fights and at least in the back end of the rankings by the end of the year if they put together a win streak. Vlismas has really caught my eye. She's always game to fight and when she took a fight on short notice, her cardio held up really well. I like what I've seen in her stand up game and even though she got controlled on the ground in her first fight, we haven't seen that be a problem since. Obviously, higher level opponents will be better suited to take advantage of that, but we'll see how much she's improved as her level of competition rises. Godinez is the opposite of Vlismas in a lot of ways. Godinez relies on her grappling and it's proved to be really good when she's fighting someone in her natural weight class. She's shown herself to be really game as well and even if striking isn't her more natural place to be, she's not going to back away from a fight. Her cardio allows her to stand and throw punches in combinations even late into the fight. As her striking improves and those combinations get better, she'll become even more dangerous when her actual striking skills match her cardio and ground game.
This is kind of what I had in mind for this series. I didn't want to do an entire write up of everyone in the rankings or anything like that. That would take a lot of time to do and honestly I don't think anyone even wants to read that to be honest. If you read my stuff, you're in pretty deep and don't need someone to explain to you who every fighter is anyways. If you have any categories that you want to see or suggestions or anything like that, then leave those in the comments. What do you guys think? Did I miss anyone in this division? Misplace anybody? Who do you think wins the Rose vs Carla fight? Leave any and all thoughts below and as always, thanks for reading and have a good one.
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