Mayra Bueno Silva and Raquel Pennington squared off in a women’s Bantamweight title contest earlier tonight (Sat., Jan. 20, 2024) at UFC 297 inside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It wasn’t the best fight, but Pennington outworked her opponent and got the job done.
Silva made her intentions clear right off the first bell, swinging heavy at Pennington’s lead calf. Pennington answered back with combinations and a powerful kick of her own. Neither woman was able to take control in the clinch, but Silva’s low kicks were landing hard enough to convince Pennington to shoot twice.
Silva denied her attempts, fed her elbows, and then landed a double leg of her own along the fence. Silva jumped onto her back and started attacking the neck, though Pennington was able to stand and control a hand. Silva managed to drag her back down, but there would be no submission before the clock ran out.
It was a strong first five minutes for the Brazilian.
The battle of punches versus calf kicks continued into the second. Silva bullied her way into the clinch, walking through several punches to force her foe into the fence. Pennington denied the takedown and punched her way out of the clinch … for a moment. When Pennington finally broke away fully, she was able to land a nice flurry of punches before stalling her own momentum with a clinch. Just as the tide seemed to be turning, Silva circled behind her opponent and jumped on her back! Pennington managed to escape into guard as the horn sounded.
The fight moved into the clinch almost immediately as the third round started. The two jockeyed for position along the fence, and an occasional elbow was landed. After a lot of clinch work, Pennington was able to force her way into top position off the threat of a guillotine choke. Bizarrely, Pennington let her back up after working so hard for top position. For a second time, Pennington forced her foe to pull guard with a choke attempt.
Strange round or not, Silva was tired, and the momentum was on Pennington’s side.
A heated 30 seconds of action … brought about more clinch work! After a minute or so of work, Silva was able to jump the back and attack the neck. It looked tight for a moment, but Pennington escaped into top position with half the round to work. Pennington settled into guard, shucking off submission attempts and landing thudding hammer fists until the round came to a close.
“Sheetara” was exhausted. Pennington teed off on her to start the fifth and final round, convincing Silva that it was a good idea to pull guard in pursuit of a kneebar — it wasn’t. Moments later, the Brazilian was mounted and deep in an arm triangle choke. Before long, the submission clearly wasn’t happening, but Pennington burned off a couple minutes of clock time hunting for it. When she finally let go of the choke attempt, she dropped some bombs from top position, serving as a minor exclamation point to her victory.
Was it fun? No, not at all. This was a strange fight full of clinch work and bad decisions. Yet, Pennington’s conditioning and grit proved the determining factor, as she was able to outlast Silva and score quite a bit of top control time in the process. There’s no doubt that she earned the belt.
Unpleasant fight or not, I have a soft spot for “everyman” champions, the athletes who were never expected to rise to the top but made it happen through obvious hard work. Good for “Rocky!”
Result: Raquel Pennington defeats Mayra Bueno Silva via unanimous decision
For complete UFC 297: “Strickland vs. Du Plessis” results and play-by-play, click HERE.