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Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s Strawweight scrappers Michelle Waterson and Cortney Casey will duel this Saturday (April 14, 2018) at UFC on FOX 29 inside Gila River Arena in Glendale, Arizona.

Waterson’s start to her UFC career couldn’t have been much better — she was able to implement her grappling skills to overcome clear size disadvantages and pick up finish victories. Those submissions raised her into the position of contender, but she suffered setbacks once facing actually elite competition. Meanwhile, Casey thus far seems like a fighter yet to live up to her potential. Though she won a pair of “Fight of the Night” bonuses and picked up some ranked wins, Casey is still just 3-4 inside the Octagon despite obvious skill and physical abilities.

Let’s take a closer look at the keys to victory for each woman:

Michelle Waterson
Record: 14-6
Key Wins: Paige VanZant (UFC on FOX 22), Jessica Penne (Invicta FC 5), Angela Magana (TUF 22 Finale), Yasuko Tamada (Invicta FC 8)
Key Losses: Rose Namajunas (UFC on FOX 24), Tecia Torres (UFC 218), Herica Tiburcio (Invicta FC 10)
Keys to Victory: Waterson is known as “The Karate Hottie” and holds a black belt in American Freestyle Karate, but kickboxing is generally a smaller part of her game. Instead, Waterson packs some surprisingly effective clinch throws, and she’s a very solid grappler once on the mat. Unfortunately, that is unlikely to work opposite Casey, who will dwarf the former Atomweight. Getting in close with the Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt is likely to land Waterson on her back, where she’s far from helpless, but that is not ideal either.

Instead, Waterson should rely on that Karate background. Waterson is the faster woman in terms of hand speed and especially foot speed. Casey sometimes looks a bit stuck in the mud — look no further than her last fight with Felice Herrig, in which Joe Rogan repeatedly questioned why neither woman did more than stand in place and pick shots. If Waterson is utilizing in-and-out movement and actively avoiding the clinch rather than seeking it, there’s a very real chance she picks Casey apart.

VS.

Cortney Casey
Record: 7-5
Key Wins: Jessica Aguilar (UFC 211), Randa Markos (UFC 202),
Key Losses: Felice Herrig (UFC 218), Claudia Gadelha (UFC Fight Night 100)
Keys to Victory: Casey is an imposing athlete at 115 pounds and has a strong grappling background. Despite her jiu-jitsu skill, Casey often looks to brawl, where she is still effective, but less dominant.

All Casey has to do to turn this fight into her favor is make it ugly. If she tries to kickbox with Waterson, there’s plenty of potential for Casey to lose yet another close decision. That’s not to say Casey cannot strike with Waterson, but there’s no reason not to make use of her size and toughness.

Casey should be trying to punch into the clinch. That’s a position where Waterson’s speed advantage is rendered unimportant, whereas Casey’s strength will reign supreme. Furthermore, Casey can either initiate the takedown or look to counter Waterson’s head-and-arm throw. Either way, she stands a good chance at landing top position, which is where she does her best work.

Short and sweet: Be aggressive, close the distance and wear down the smaller athlete.

Bottom Line: It should be a fun and competitive match up between fringe contenders.

After her last two losses, Waterson needs a victory to remain relevant at 115 pounds. She won’t be released or even in danger with a defeat — Waterson is too popular and too good for that. But, if she’s unable to at least occasionally win higher level fights like this, UFC will stop booking her on the main card of bigger shows.

A win doesn’t return her to the title mix, but it’s a start, and it keeps her comfortably in UFC’s good graces.

The stakes are fairly high for Casey as well. Had the split-decision gone her way opposite Herrig, there would be no “fringe” next to the word contender. As it is, though, Casey has lost two of her last three bouts, and she really needs to impose her game on Waterson. If Casey comes in without a gameplan and lets Waterson play with the range, the close decision loss will be no one’s fault but her own, and it will completely stall any forward momentum she has.

The bright side is that Waterson definitely still has name value as a highly ranked athlete and former Invicta FC champ. If Casey can add another impressive name to her resume, it will go a long way in pushing her to the Top 10.

At UFC on FOX 29, Michelle Waterson and Cortney Casey will square off. Which fighter will earn the victory?

A change of plans for the interim welterweight title fight between Rafael dos Anjos and Colby Covington.

So much for Colby Covington going back to Brazil.

During the UFC’s 25th Anniversary Press Conference on Friday, officials announced that the interim welterweight title fight between Covington and Rafael dos Anjos will actually co-headline UFC 225 in Chicago on June 9th, as opposed to previous reports of the fight taking place at May 12th’s UFC 224 in Rio de Janeiro.

Covington’s last trip to Brazil saw fans throw trash his way after an ugly post-fight interview following his win over Demian Maia. The remarks included calling the country “a dump” and describing Brazilians as “filthy animals.”

“I’m the King of Brazil,” Covington said at the 25th Anniversary Press Conference. “I owe it to the fans of Brazil to go back there and put on a show for them. Brazil wasn’t ready for me, so Dana had to put it in the U.S.”

In case you’re wondering why an interim title has been made, UFC president Dana White said that reigning champion Tyron Woodley won’t be available until August, which would make for more than a year between title defenses.

“He’s injured,” White said of Woodley (via MMA Fighting). ”He’s been out for awhile. We’ve been trying to get him to fight. He’s not taking any fights. He sent us a doctor’s note from the best shoulder specialist in the country, who said he’s out til August. We’re not going to be in a position where we jam up a division, so we’re going to do the fight.”

UFC 225’s main event is a middleweight championship rematch between Robert Whittaker and Yoel Romero. As for UFC 224, the main card bout order is set, with a women’s bantamweight title match between Amanda Nunes and Raquel Pennington serving as the headliner, and Ronaldo Souza vs. Kelvin Gastelum as the co-main event.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk reacts to her decision loss to strawweight champion Rose Namajunas at UFC 223.

Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s quest to regain the UFC strawweight title she lost to Rose Namajunas proved unsuccessful on Saturday night, as Namajunas won a unanimous decision (49-46 across the board) in the UFC 223 co-main event. Unlike the first fight, which saw Namajunas win the belt with a shocking first-round KO, the rematch was a back-and-forth affair that was closer than the scorecards may suggest.

For Jedrzejczyk, she didn’t expect to hear Rose announced as the winner when she heard the scorecards.

”When I heard Bruce Buffer saying the numbers of how the judges scored the card, I expected that I was going to win by split decision,” Jedrzejczyk said at the post-fight press conference (via MMA Mania). “But when I heard the difference I was like ‘Okay, we’ve got this win, easy.’ Even say my coaches. So it was a really big surprise and the numbers don’t lie: 142 to 84, and landed 132 from me, 83 from Rose. That’s the answer. That’s the answer.”

As she referenced at the end of that sentence, Jedrzejczyk did statistically outland Namajunas in terms of significant strike, although it was 145-105 for Joanna and not the numbers she gave out. In fact, she had the edge in all five rounds, but of course landing more strikes than your opponent is useless without context, and not a guarantee that you’ll come away with the decision. What tilted the totals in Joanna’s favor were her leg kicks, as she landed 54 to Rose’s 5. In terms of head strikes, Rose had the advantage 85-64, but Jedrzejczyk had more body strikes, leg strikes, and literally all of the clinch strikes.

Despite the disappointing outcome, Jedrzejczyk indicated she isn’t crying robbery and that she was happy with her performance on Saturday night.

”We thought the second round was super close, but more kicks from me,” she said. “And I felt great, you could see that she gassed out in the third round and I was more than ready to go with every round, I could fight 10 more rounds. At the end of every break I was on my feet ready to go … I felt like I was winning the fight. And I’m not complaining that I lost or not. I’m really different fighter, I’ve done so much for myself and the sport. I feel great.”

While the judges had it 49-46, none of them reached their respective scorecards the same way. Glenn Trowbridge only gave Jedrzejczyk round 2, Dave Tirelli awarded Joanna round 4, and Chris Lee saw round 3 in the former champ’s favor. All three judges unanimously saw Namajunas taking rounds 1 and 5.

There has been talk of Jedrzejczyk eventually moving up to flyweight. As far as her immediate future at strawweight, the 30-year-old said, “I feel great in the 115 division … but we’ll see. We’ll see where we go after the vacation and after we talk to Dana and the matchmakers.”