Would-be “Mom Champ,” Michelle Waterson, will throw down with former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Strawweight strap-hanger, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, this Saturday (Oct. 12, 2019) at UFC Fight Night 161 from inside Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
When Waterson first joined UFC’s roster, she did so as a recent Invicta FC Atomweight champ and looked the part, showing plenty of skill, but giving up some size and strength. A few years later, that’s no longer the case. Waterson has improved her physicality a great deal, to the point where her strength matches up well with her peers and she’s able to maintain a hard pace later into the fight.
As a result, her skills have shined in recent wins. Let’s take a closer look!
Striking
A black belt in American Freestyle Karate, Waterson’s actually tends to prefer to grapple rather than strike. However, Waterson’s karate background — as well as her work at camp Jackson-Wink — is still very apparent in her style.
Waterson’s movement and style of range control is interesting. She likes to strike from the outside and draw her opponent forward, which often results in a lot of side-shuffling. At times, however, Waterson is also willing to simply plant her feet and wait, trusting herself to land a counter as they come in.
Waterson is primarily a kicker. On the outside, she does a lot of foot replacement into kicks. Usually from the Orthodox stance, Waterson brings her back font to her front leg’s position, taking the weight off her lead leg and allowing it to be thrown in a variety of kicks. The foot replacement is quick and covers distance, often giving Waterson the edge when initiating kicking exchanges. From this initial set up, Waterson can throw a lot of techniques. Most often, she’ll attack with a quick low kick, but that left leg can also be aimed at the mid-section, be delivered in a straight line to the knee, or fly up to the chin. Later, Waterson will foot replace and then step forward with her left foot, allowing her to throw a hard right low kick.
It all adds up to be pretty tricky and help keep Waterson ahead on points while at range.
In truth, Waterson is not much of a boxer. When she does land punches, it’s largely one stiff jab or overhand as her opponent steps forward and Waterson takes her head off the center line. Often, Waterson is punching to maintain distance. She pumps out the jab frequently, even if she’s almost definitely going to come up short, with the intent of putting something in her opponent’s path. She’ll follow up with a cross occasionally, and Waterson often sticks to these straight shots.
Waterson really likes to fight as a counter striker, but she’ll sometimes go on the offensive to set up a kick. For example, she will flash a jab or hook in order to step outside of her opponent’s lead leg, which puts her in good position to kick the leg or jam a side kick into her opponent’s belly.
In addition, Waterson will often attack with naked kicks. She throws a lot of front and sudden high kicks, which are pretty difficult to counter or catch. Similar kicks up the middle like side and ax kicks will make their way into her game as well, and they all serve the purpose of being a range keeping weapon.
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On the whole, “The Karate Hottie” does her best work when her opponent initiates without really pressuring her. Whenever her opponent looks to shoot out a jab or lead with a power punch, for example, Waterson does an excellent job of skipping back a half-step and jamming a kick into the mid-section. She can kick quickly with either leg (GIF) and often aims to kick under the punch, which is quite painful and tiring.
Additionally, Waterson has a unique habit of double-kicking when her opponent pressures. Sometimes, the first kick will stop her opponent’s movement — like a side kick or teep — and the second will be a round house. Other times, she’ll fire two round house kicks in a row, landing with one leg and then immediately attacking with the other.
Waterson’s problems arise when an opponent is consistently able to find her way into the pocket and force longer boxing exchanges. In addition, Rose Namajunas managed to hurt Waterson badly after side-stepping one her side kicks, taking a hugely advantageous angle and blasting her with a high kick.
Wrestling
Over the last few years, Waterson has consistently out-wrestled most of her opponents. Some of those women, like Courtney Casey, were much larger than Waterson, but that didn’t stop her from throwing her to the mat and winning the fight due to her top position.
Like many of her peers, Waterson likes the headlock throw. Unlike most of them, she’s actually good at it. In this week’s technique highlight, we analyze the difference:
Waterson will also level change into more traditional takedowns, admittedly with less success. She did score a very nice high-crotch dump on Karolina Kowalkiewicz, denying Kowalkiewicz’s attempt at hitting a switch by jumping across the body well.
Early on, Waterson had more of an issue with getting out-muscled in the clinch. As mentioned, however, her improved strength and conditioning has made this less of an issue as of late.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Waterson is a jiu-jitsu purple belt and has scored nine of her victories via submission. She’s very solid on the ground both offensively and defensively, and she’s quick to lock in the finish if given an opportunity.
“The Karate Hottie” makes the most of her aforementioned flexibility by attacking with high and rubber guard. From these positions, she’s very quickly able to rotate and attack the arm bar. Opposite Kowalkiewicz, Waterson used her flexibility to attack the armbar smoothly from top position. First, she slid her knee halfway across the stomach from side control, threatening the mount. Rather than complete the mount, she framed her opponent’s face into the mat and slid her other leg across the face, allowing her to latch onto the arm and fall back into the hold.
Aside from the arm bar, Waterson has shown solid technique in other areas. She’s very quick to step into mount during scrambles and after hip tosses, and she is able to control the position well by grapevining her opponent’s legs. This eventually allows her to transition into back mount, which helps explain her four rear naked choke victories.
In one slick example of Waterson’s grappling, she used a rolling kneebar to reverse Herica Tiburcio. Tiburcio had slid into the back clinch and was muscling Waterson around, but the Colorado-native quickly dove forward and wrapped up her foe’s leg. Tiburcio nearly fell on her face, and Waterson was able to climb into top position before she recovered.
Conclusion
When Waterson lost consecutive fights in 2017, it seemed to spell the end for any hopes at a title for “Karate Hottie.” However, she’s shown genuine improvement and overcome the odds to put together a strong three-fight win streak since. Joanna Jedrzejczyk will prove another difficult step up in competition, but it’s one that could secure her a title shot.
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Fight Night 161 fight card this weekend, starting with the ESPN+“Prelims” that are scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET, then the main card portion that will also stream on ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET.
To check out the latest and greatest UFC Fight Night 161: “Joanna vs. Waterson” news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here.
Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.