We've come to one of those UFC cards where everyone just kind of looks around and shrugs their shoulders. I think it is unfortunate that the UFC always does this when they have women in the main event. Obviously, the strength (or lack there of) of the main event has a lot to do with the generally down opinion of the card as a whole, but if the rest of the card was fun and/or exciting, it would be a great opportunity to elevate women's MMA. Instead they opt to put some of their worst main events of the year on some of the thinnest cards overall and create a few Fight Nights a year where the whole event is pretty hard to get excited for. It isn't even that I think this card is completely void of anything interesting at all, but it never really feels like the card is building to anything. Outside of the final two fights, it feels like the 9 other fights could have taken place in any order and nothing would change. Maybe its just me, but I like when the card feels like each fight is building and they're getting more and more interesting or meaningful as the night goes. With that said, you guys know by now that I'm not someone who harps on the strength of a card, but this one is noticeably worse than the average event. Call me an apologist if you must, but I think there are still some interesting matchups and some individual performances that I'm looking forward to seeing. The main event sees long time UFC veteran and women's MMA legend Holly Holm returning from injury to face up and coming title hopeful Ketlen Vieira. This fight is set up to either put Holm into potentially another title fight or vault Vieira's career forward in a big way.
Ketlen Vieira will be in the blue corner for this fight and we'll start with her. This is certainly the biggest opportunity of her career and her push has come at sort of an odd time. This will only be her 15th career fight and it seems like the UFC has really started to give her a push after she lost. She entered the UFC back in 2016 and got off to a very nice start in the promotion by winning her first 4 over Kelly Faszholz, Ashlee Evans-Smith, Sara McMann, and Cat Zingano. Her next fight ended up being her first career loss when she was knocked out by Irene Aldana. She bounced back with a win over Sijara Eubanks, but then dropped her next fight to Yana Kunitskaya. Despite coming off of a loss, her next fight was the biggest of her career when she was matched up against the former champion, Miesha Tate. It wasn't the best performance of her career, but her size and speed proved to be too much as she won a pretty clear decision. This fight against Holly Holm represents both her biggest push in terms of the rankings and level of competition, which generally is the case, but not always. Holm will be her toughest matchup because she is the most skilled fighter she's fought other than Tate, but Vieira had a huge size advantage in that fight. With Vieira, so much of the hype around her is based off of her clear potential and what she could become and not as much the actual performances she's put on tape. She's obviously put together some really good fights to beat some very high level opponents, but it just feels she hasn't really even gotten close to her potential just yet. At this stage of her career, the grappling phase is where she is a little more natural and feels the most comfortable. Her wrestling and takedown ability isn't necessarily amazing, but it is pretty solid. She gets her takedowns at a rate of 46%, which isn't exactly amazing, but it isn't anything to scoff at either. She averages a total of 1.71 takedowns per 15 minutes as well. Her real strength in the grappling is her BJJ and her ability to control the fight from the top. She was able to win a grappling heavy fight and submit Sara McMann, who is one of the better wrestlers in any women's division in the UFC right now, so she passes the level of competition test. On the feet, she's still a work in progress, but she has shown improvement from fight to fight. Miesha Tate was looking to wrestle her last time out and she was able to keep the distance and win the fight with her striking. In a vacuum, I think her striking is just ok, but she still doesn't seem to fully trust it. You can almost see her thinking through the process and it doesn't flow as naturally as it would for the life long strikers like Holly Holm does. I think if she just trusted her instincts, she's plenty long and powerful enough that she could and would be plenty good enough to at least hold her own against most women in the division. She was able to really bloody Miesha Tate's face and looked powerful when she let her hands go. I don't know if it is an issue with her comfort level in the striking, but I would like to see her strike with a little more volume. She throws a tick over 3 strikes per minute, which is my cutoff for not being enough. In my mind, if a fighter is at 3 or more strikes a minute, then they can win fights at that level, but I think Vieira has more in there. I think she could've finished Miesha Tate if she just let her hands go more, but she didn't, for whatever reason. Defensively, Vieira has really good takedown defense, but I don't think that will come into play Saturday. If Holly Holm is shooting for takedowns in this fight, then something has gone horribly wrong for her. I think Vieira's striking defense is probably the aspect of her game that has the most room to improve. For someone who is more of a slow paced striker, getting out done by volume striking is probably the easiest way for her to lose and her defense doesn't help matters. She absorbs over 4 strikes per minute, which is just slightly too much. Holm really isn't the fighter that will pour on volume, so this matchup will help a little, but I think avoiding damage might be the one area of her game that holds her back slightly. If she cleaned that up in this camp or even going forward, I wouldn't be surprised at all if she challenges for a belt before her career finishes.
Holly Holm is obviously the A side of this main event and is set up for potentially one more shot at the title before her legendary career comes to an end. For as much weight as her name carries in this sport, she hasn't had that many MMA fights. She made her pro debut in 2011 and only has 19 professional fights in that time. Of course, Holm fought an entire boxing career before making the transition and that is where a vast majority of her combat experience comes from. After starting her career 7-0, she signed with the UFC and began her climb to the towards the top when the UFC added the women's divisions. She won her first two fights in the promotion against Raquel Pennington and Marion Reneau, which was enough to get her a title shot against Ronda Rousey. I'm sure if you're reading this, you know she landed the head kick heard round the world to stop Ronda's dominant reign as champion in its tracks. It was very fitting that the fight where she shocked the world and became champion was also probably her best performance. She was really good in that fight and did a good job at preventing Ronda from getting her into the positions that she got all of her previous opponents into almost instantly. Unfortunately, the good times didn't last very long as Holm would lose the belt in her next fight to Miesha Tate, which was the beginning of a 3 fight losing streak. She lost the belt to Tate, then lost to Valentina Shevchenko before being one half of the inaugural women's featherweight fight, which she lost to Germaine de Randamie, which was a very strange fight. Holm was hit with pretty solid shots after the horn sounded at the end of both the second and third round, but the referee didn't do anything about it. Holm would appeal the result, but you know how MMA appeals go. Holm struggled to find her footing after that and alternated wins and losses for awhile. She won her next fight at bantamweight via TKO against Bethe Correia and that somehow got her another title shot, but for the featherweight belt. She would lose that fight to Cris Cyborg. She would stay at featherweight and pick up a win against Megan Anderson. This win would propel her to another title shot, but this time for the bantamweight title, which she would lose to Amanda Nunes. I think at this point fans may have started to sour on Holm a bit just because it felt like she was constantly being thrown into title fights just because of the name value she provided. She's certainly not the only one the UFC and other promotions have done that to, but it did honestly feel a bit weird. Most of the time when the UFC gives title shots to people who may not be the true number one contender, it was for the purpose of doing big business, but I don't think any of these title fights that Holm was given were really on the forefront of fights people cared about all that much. Anyways, she has worked things out and has won two in a row now. The first came against Raquel Pennington and her last fight was a win over Irene Aldana, which was one of Holm's best performances in years. Unfortunately, she had some health problems and injuries that delayed her turnaround after that fight, so this is her first appearance since even though that fight was in October of 2020. Stylistically, Holm will be looking to keep this one standing. She has virtually no offensive grappling, but as someone who had an entire professional boxing career before even coming to MMA, that is an understandable skillset to have. I think she is probably more well rounded than the typical boxer turned MMA fighter. Her kicks evolved very early on in her career and have been a very useful part of her game for years now. Everyone knows the head kick that finished Ronda, but she also finished Bethe Correia with a head kick. Sometimes I wish she would kick more to be honest. She's typically pretty long for the division, so throw low kicks would serve her well, but sometimes she just gets locked in with the boxing combinations. Her defensive grappling has actually gotten to the point where I consider her to be pretty good. She has a 76% takedown defense, which will be important for her as it almost always is. It isn't often, especially post Charles Oliveira turnaround, that I'll say "a fighter is who they are", but I think that is probably a safe bet with Holly Holm at this stage. She's going to stuff takedowns pretty well, work her way up if she does go down, and then get on her bike and use her cleaner boxing to win on the feet. Holm's movement and footwork is almost always a massive advantage for her and it will be Saturday as well. My main concern for Holly is just her age. She's over 40 now and she hasn't fought in close to two years. At some point, father time catches up with everyone and for Holly Holm, that time is certainly coming sooner than later. She already strikes at a pretty slow pace and if she starts to slow down even more, the volume could become a real concern. Even if she has regressed some, she'll likely still be the better technical striker with the better footwork, but she has to have her cardio in order to throw and land enough strikes.
I think the biggest key to this fight will be that cardio situation for both women. Like I just finished up saying, Holly has always been a slower paced fighter and as she ages, she is only going to slow down more. We haven't seen her in awhile, so I just wonder where her gas tank is really at and what kind of pace she can put out there. At the same time, Ketlen Vieira hasn't really shown the best cardio over the course of her career. If Holm is winning some of the early exchanges, I think Vieira could start to fade. Vieira would have the advantage if she could get the fight down, but her wrestling is a lot closer to average than it is to being an actual plus attribute. Even if she can get Holm down early, that will take a huge portion of her gas tank and I think Holm would be able to at least make Vieira work hard to keep her down. It would surprise me if Vieira was getting 4, 5, 6 plus takedowns in this fight. On the feet, Holm is clearly the more technical, advanced, and natural striker. She also has the better striking defense. If this fight stays standing for long stretches, I think we are likely to see Holm start to pull away. We just saw Vieira be slightly better on the feet than Miesha Tate, who is a wrestler that had a huge size disadvantage. Holly Holm is a different level of striker and boxer both with the actual strikes and the movement. Vieira is a very good fighter, but this matchup really doesn't favor her very much at all. My concern is that I just can't be convinced that Holly Holm is going to be that same fighter that she's been for so long. Not only is she on the wrong side of 40, but she has a lot of miles on those tires. After 38 boxing matches and 19 MMA fights, that is a lot of damage and a lot of weight cuts to go through and still maintain the same level. The key for Vieira will be to get takedowns and get them rather easily. I think her BJJ is good enough that she could submit Holly if she gets it down. If she can't find that finish, she is going to have to find those takedowns consistently to get the top control in three or four rounds potentially. The reason for optimism around Vieira is that she is showing herself getting better in almost every fight. Hopefully for her, she has her cardio in order and she'll show continued improvement in the striking. Holm isn't known to really pour on the volume, so this should allow Vieira to strike at a pace that is a little more comfortable for her. I fully understand why Holm is a pretty nice sized favorite, but I don't think Ketlen Vieira can be ruled out entirely. I think it is clear that I'm leaning Holm's way, but all of my picks will be official tomorrow.
What do you guys think? What are your predictions for the fight? What are your keys for both sides? Leave any and all thoughts below. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
Comments
Post a Comment