The co-main event for Saturday's UFC 274 card is a rematch for the women's strawweight championship that is 8 years in the making. Rose Namajunas fought Carla Esparza for the inaugural UFC women's strawweight title as the finale to The Ultimate Fighter season 20 in December of 2014. Esparza would win that fight with her dominant grappling and was able to lock in the rear naked choke in the opening half of the third round. That fight was so long ago that both fighters, especially Rose, have evolved tremendously since then, so I'll keep the reference to the first fight to a minimum. I think some newer fans or the more casual portion of the fanbase, maybe some who only watch the PPV cards, may be overlooking Carla a bit just because they're not as familiar with her, which is a mistake. Carla Esparza, even after all these years, is fighting as well as she ever has and is a real threat in this fight. Depending on how long she really wants to fight, this may be her last shot to get her hands on the belt, so I expect her to leave it all out there. This should be a fun fight and closer than I think most are giving it credit for.
Carla Esparza will be in the blue corner for this one as the challenger. Carla has been around as she's made a couple of appearance's in Bellator and held Invicta's inaugural women's strawweight title for a brief time in 2013. Her UFC debut came in that title fight with Rose, which we've already established that she won. She would lose her title to Joanna Jedrzejczyk in her first defense, but that doesn't diminish her accomplishment any in my eyes. Over the next couple of years, she would be up and down, not having a winning or losing streak longer than two fights. Starting in 2019, she found more consistent footing and began her run that has her in this title fight. She's won 5 in a row over some very good competition in Virna Jandiroba, Alexa Grasso, Michelle Waterson, Marina Rodriguez, and Yan Xiaonan. Her last win over Xiaonan was particularly impressive as she dominated and eventually got the TKO from ground and pound. Stylistically, Carla very much relies on her wrestling. She is grappling heavy and I wouldn't expect anything different in this one. She is looking to drag the fight to the ground and control things from top position. Historically, she has been much more position over submission, but she's tried to buck that trend a bit in recent fights. She's started to open up on the ground and more aggressively attempt to finish fights, whether that comes by submission or ground and pound. This has made her infinitely more dangerous. In the past, her game was too reliant on having massive amounts of control time. She almost had to get 3+ minutes of control to win the round because she was doing so little damage once she got it there that any damage in the striking was enough for her opponent to take the round. That version of Esparza is in the past and she is not only willing to open things up, but she's looking to do so. As is the case with grappling heavy styles, they require the fighter's cardio to be excellent and that is where Carla is at. At her age, cardio isn't always the easiest thing to keep up, but she has done so just fine and is in an excellent place coming into this fight. The striking has always been the weaker side of Carla's game and that is still the case, albeit to a lesser degree. She's made very solid and noticeable improvements in her striking over the years, but that is where a lot of her losses end up coming from. The main reason she can be had on the feet is that she throws strikes with so little volume. She only lands 2.34 strikes per minute at a 43% accuracy, which is low output regardless of weight class. She does do a good job of limiting the damage on the feet though, so while she doesn't do much damage of her own, she isn't absorbing tons of damage either. She can most certainly win this fight, but Carla is going to need the best striking she's displayed yet in order to do it. Unless she can come out and go full Khabib, this fight will have stretches of striking and she's going to need to hold her own.
Rose Namajunas is in her second reign as UFC strawweight champion and she seems much more prepared to go on a long run as champion this time around. She's made a career of going on three fight win streaks and if that pattern holds, she'll lose this fight, but that is just historical pattern of course. Her UFC debut was in that initial title fight against Esparza, but after that, she would win three in a row over Angela Hill, Paige VanZant, and Tecia Torres. That streak would be put to a stop with a loss to Karolina Kowalkiewicz at UFC 201. Another three fight win streak would start with a win over Michelle Waterson and then she would win the title over Joanna Jedrzejczyk. The third win was a successful defense in the rematch against Joanna. Her pair of wins over Joanna came as the underdog against what was a dominant champion at the time. Rose's title reign was cut short when she was slammed on her head and knocked out in shocking fashion by Jessica Andrade. She took a long time off after that and has since spoken about her mental struggles with her confidence and other issues around that time. In that time, Andrade lost the belt, but Rose got that win back in their rematch on Fight Island. That was enough to get Rose another title shot, this time against Zhang Weili. In what was expected to be a close and tough fight, Rose landed a head kick just over a minute into the fight and got the finish seconds later. The immediate rematch was booked and Rose would prevail again, this time by a much closer decision. Rose has been incredibly inspirational in her career with her openness about her struggles and how she has been able to rise back to the top after losing her belt. She has this thing about her where it just feels like you've known her your whole life, which has much of the fan base behind her in almost all of her fights. What makes it all the more amazing is that she really doesn't do anything that is other worldly or amazing. I would qualify Rose as a striker, even though she is fairly well rounded. She is much more comfortable on the feet and it shows. She strikes with solid volume and technique, but I wouldn't go as far as to say that she is overwhelming in either capacity. She does a good job of mixing up techniques and targets, which keeps her opponents off balance. She uses all 8 limbs (punches, elbows, kicks, knees) and throws them to all three levels. She was able to get Weili focused on the leg kicks, so when that list kick came up high, she just wasn't ready for it and got caught. Rose isn't especially powerful or fast, but she's enough of both to be really effective. She will have a slight reach advantage in this one as well, so she should look to take advantage of it if possible. When it comes to the grappling, Rose is better offensively than defensively. She does look for takedowns at times and can get them at a very nice 56% success rate. She isn't particularly aggressive in her strikes or submissions from the top, but she can hold her opponents down and control the fight. Her defensive grappling is probably her main weakness. She has improved significantly since that first Esparza fight, but that is probably the area she can be had most easily. She only defends takedowns at a 51% rate, so she'll need her defenses to be at their best this weekend. I think most of her problems in the grappling have come from her size disadvantage. She's not a particularly physical woman, so she can be taken advantage of in the clinch by the much bigger women in the division. Earlier in her career, there may have been a technique disadvantage as well, but that has long since been cleaned up. Rose is an extremely well rounded fighter, but she's going to need to keep this one standing to retain her title.
The most important key to this fight will be Rose's ability to keep the fight standing against Esparza's ability to take Rose down. That is sort of where the outcome of the fight lies. Ultimately, if Rose is stuffing the takedowns, it is going to be a tall task for Carla to win that fight on the feet. Conversely, if Carla is hitting her takedowns and getting that top control, she's going to be in a really good spot. However, that much is pretty clear even to the most casual viewer, so let's dig a bit deeper than that. The easiest way for each fighter to get to their game plan is to be the one going forward. If Carla can push Rose backwards and get her back against the cage, that will make getting to her takedown attempts much easier. In today's day and age, most MMA takedowns come against the cage, so if Carla can be the one advancing, she can put Rose against the cage and start chaining he takedown attempts together. Once she's on top, I think Carla needs to be aggressive. I don't think sitting in place and maybe advancing to half guard or side control is going to be enough to get the win in this one. She will have to open things up and either get to Rose's back and start fishing for the choke or look to do damage with punches and elbows. If she does get stuck on the feet for long stretches, I think the hope for Carla is that she can at least threaten the takedown attempts enough to freeze Rose and limit her output. If this becomes a low volume striking battle, that gives Carla a better chance of edging out rounds. If Rose gets into her flow state on the feet, the volume is going to be enough to win the fight in all likelihood, so Carla will have to limit that somehow. For Rose, going forward will be equally as important to limit a lot of Carla's offense. If you watch a lot of the events, the commentators will almost always mention how much easier it is to defend takedowns when you're the fighter going forward. Forcing the wrestler to be on the back foot makes their takedowns easier to recognize and they don't get the same push off and power into them. If Rose can have Carla going backwards, that will limit her wrestling game slightly. On top of that, if Rose is leading, she'll be able to use the small reach advantage she has and fight behind her jab. Rose will want this fight to take place at range as much as possible and her jab and low kicks will be the easiest way to keep that range. Those weapons will be an easy way to get a lead in the rounds without having to step into the pocket and take the risk of getting clipped. It kind of feels like Rose has a lot of momentum coming into this fight, so Carla is going to have to flip that pretty quickly in my estimation. If Carla can win the first round or at least make it close and hard, then she'll be in a very solid spot for the rest of the fight. If Rose comes out and cruises in the first round, the momentum will get rolling and, of course, the crowd will be behind her. Regardless of how the fight is supposed to be judged, if you've watched MMA or boxing long enough, you know the crowd can influence the scoring to an extent. Rose needs to keep it at range and Carla needs this fight to be in close quarters. If someone can use better footwork to make that happen, that could be the difference as well. I think this fight is much more narrow than what the betting lines may suggest, especially if Rose keeps getting juiced.
What do you guys think? Who do you like to win? What are your predictions for the fight? What are your keys to victory? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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