Joanna Jedrzejczyk may rule the 115-pound division with an iron fist, but the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) marketing muscle seems firmly behind the division's youngest competitor, Paige VanZant.
This Thursday evening (Dec. 10, 2015), the 21-year-old will compete in her first-ever main event opposite fellow young gun "Thug" Rose Namajunas, who steps in on short notice to replace the injured Joanne Calderwood, at UFC Fight Night 80, which will emanate from inside "The Cosmopolitan" in Las Vegas, Nevada.
VanZant -- whose age prevented her from joining the division's elite on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 20 -- has earned four wins since a Jan. 2013 loss to Tecia Torres, three of them in UFC proper. She's certainly on a hot streak, but it remains to be seen whether she can become the breakout star UFC desires.
Let's see if we can't figure it out:
Striking
At range, VanZant's striking ranges from adequate at-best to a liability at-worst. For the most part, she is content to flick low and middle kicks, usually with her lead leg, until she manages to close the gap and enter her wheelhouse. She has not shown any set up for these kicks nor any real knack for combinations. When she does throw punches, she tends to leave her head high and advance in a straight line.
The good news? She seems cognizant of these flaws. Indeed. ever since her drubbing by Torres, she's fought with a single-minded pursuit of the clinch.
True to her "12-Gauge" nickname, VanZant excels on the inside. Though her clinch lacks the technical mastery of, say, Josh Barnett's or the sheer destructiveness of the sadly still-injured Miriam Nakamoto's, it's absolutely debilitating. She uses her head to manipulate her opponents' postures, then cracks them with knees any time they dip too far to one side.
In recent fights, she's done more and more work in the Thai plum, drilling her foe with knees to the body and sneaking in the occasional elbow. In fact, she effectively broke Alex Chambers from that position in her last effort.
She has two major issues, however, one of which doomed Ronda Rousey and both of which would have likely cost her dearly against Calderwood.
First, she lacks any real nuance in her clinch entries. Oftentimes, she'll simply walk forward until her opponent runs out of space to retreat. This works against those without the composure to move laterally when pressured, sure, but it's a part of the game she will need to develop before facing top-shelf talent such as Claudia Gadelha and Jessica Aguilar, among others. Even Chambers managed to crack her with a lovely right hand as she stepped in.
Second, her defense in the clinch is extremely porous. Torres, Felice Herrig and Chambers all managed to land quality blows while being tied up. The Thai plum she's been favoring makes this issue more obvious, as she doesn't do a great job of breaking her opponent's posture to deny return fire. In addition, her response to getting hit in the clinch appears to be walking forward until they hit the fence and she can smother.
So far, her chin has held up well and the sheer volume of strikes she lands tends to wear down her opponents until they're too tired to properly retaliate. Still, these aren't habits the division's best are going to let slide.
Wrestling
As with her striking, VanZant's wrestling is almost purely clinch-based. In the four fights I watched for this breakdown, I saw only one real shot from the outside and that was against Torres.
It wasn't pretty.
VanZant possesses a nice array of takedowns, the head-and-arm throw serving as her go-to. She also showed an effective hip toss against Chambers and, against a superior wrestler in Kailin Curran, managed to pull guard and hit a sweep on the fence.
One of her best tricks, which she's used throughout her UFC career, is to apply pressure in the clinch until her opponent makes a concerted effort to force her back, at which point she gives ground and uses their own momentum to score the takedown. Even Torres -- whose own wrestling prowess is nothing to scoff at -- fell victim to that tactic.
Once her opponent is sufficiently brutalized, she'll go to work with foot sweeps or simply muscle her down, landing strikes all the way. Her overzealousness has cost her, however. She's given up her back multiple times in the process of that head-and-arm throw, which both Torres and Herrig capitalized on to good effect. Further, despite working with one of the best wrestling camps in the sport, she hasn't pursued single- or double-legs thus far in her UFC career.
Defensively speaking, only Kailin Curran has made a real effort to drag her down and she found plenty of success, making VanZant's takedown defense something of a question mark, but she's shown her camp's trademark scrambling ability in the past.
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
The most technically-sound aspect of VanZant's game is, in all likelihood, her work off her back. She has very slick armbar entries and, refreshingly, isn't single-minded in her pursuit of a submission. Despite hitting multiple takedowns, Curran had very few opportunities to do work on top thanks to "12 Gauge's" active sweep game.
On top, she is all about landing punches. She'll often move to half guard, slide her shin partway through their legs as though for a knee cut pass, and then posture up to deal damage. If her opponent starts to cover up, she'll stand rather than continue passing in an effort to gain the maximum amount of leverage on her blows.
Her ability to stay on top has improved greatly since her fight with Torres, who managed to stand on more than one occasion by simply kicking VanZant off of her.
Her steady assault through awkward position works to break down opponents, but also leaves her vulnerable to sweeps. She appears to get so engrossed in dealing damage that she fails to maintain proper balance, which allows opponents out of difficult situations.
In short, her game is one in which she compensates for her technical shortcomings with sheer volume and aggression. It's worked thus far, but it will face a damn stiff test on Thursday.
Best Chance For Success
While Namajunas isn't quite as toxic a match up as Calderwood would have been, she still presents major issues for VanZant. "Thug Rose" is a terrific opportunistic grappler who is well-equipped to punish her young foe's defensive lapses. And even though she's far from a finished product on the feet herself, figures to have a sizable edge in the striking.
The key for VanZant will be careful pressure. Esparza managed to entirely shut down Namajunas' venomous submission game using only a strong base and some patience. Ideally, VanZant should work from the clinch while remaining wary of her opponent's flying submissions and only attempt her dynamic ground-and-pound once the latter starts to tire.
To do so will require a level of discipline and technique she's yet to display, and if she manages to pull it off, she's got a damn bright future ahead of her.