Over the last seven months, Ultimate Fighting Championship's (UFC) women's Strawweight division has become more entertaining, volatile and disjointed ... all at the same time.
Division champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk, or "Joanna Champion" as she is often called, is the ruler of the land, having dismantled and downright beat down Carla Esparza and then Jessica Penne in her first title defense.
The skilled young stars of the division, such as Paige VanZant and Tecia Torres, continue their rise up the ranks, while wildcards Michelle Waterson and Maryna Moroz have crept into the Top 15 and kept things interesting.
At UFC 190, which takes place inside HSBC Arena in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, tonight (Sat. Aug. 1, 2015), mixed martial arts (MMA) fans everywhere will learn who is next in line to face the prolific Polish champion Jedrzeczyk when Claudia Gadelha meets Octagon newcomer Jessica Aguilar.
Though the main attraction of the evening will be a women's Bantamweight title headliner pitting Ronda Rousey against outspoken No. 1 contender and Brazil native Bethe Correia (more on the fight here), as well as a co-main event clash of Pride FC legends Shogun Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, the main card opener of Gadelha and Aguilar is just as juicy and worth your attention.
In fact, it might even be more competitive than the main event. Anyway ...
In particular, for American Top Team's (ATT) Aguilar, it is put up or shut up time as she comes into the sport's biggest promotion and is immediately thrown into a title eliminator against a woman who desperately wants a revenge on Jedrzejczyk.
The women's 115-pound division is fairly new to casual MMA fans, but the 33-year-old Aguilar has competed in the weight class for more than nine years.
"JAG" kicked off her professional career in Feb. 2006 against future Bellator competitor and The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 20 alum, Lisa Ellis. It was a bout that Aguilar took just one week notice.
She would lose to Ellis via a rear-naked choke in the second round of her professional debut, but that would not stop the profound grappler from shining. Aguilar continued to excel, reeling off four-straight victories, three of them finishes.
The Mexican pummeled Lindsay Ketchum for a first-round corner stoppage, choked out Tamera Arnold and submitted future UFC strawweight Angela Magana -- the latter being an opponent she would come to be increasingly familiar with later on in her career.
Aguilar is a fast starter and will try to overwhelm her opponent early with flurries of punches and constant pressure. She is content to stand and bang, but also offers up the threat of a takedown. This was a gameplan she established early in her career.
In Aug. 2007, Aguilar suffered her second professional loss to versatile veteran Carina Damm.
Roughly seven months passed before the next time she stepped into a cage. It was a controversial outing against Magana. Blood trickled into the eye of Magana in the initial moments of the final round from the face of Aguilar and the referee mistook the former's cry, or wince, for a verbal submission.
Outside of the blatant mistake, it was all Aguilar for the prior 10 minutes. The ground specialist took down Magana multiple times throughout their tilt and scored with several shots from top position.
Around this time, Aguilar would meet UFC President Dana White unexpectedly in a Gold's Gym (h/t Sherdog.com). She made quite the impression having proclaimed to White, "one day I'll be your champion."
Aguilar and Mangana collided for a third time in Jan. 2009, with "Your Majesty" taking a majority-decision win over Aguilar. Maybe it was just the air in Evansville, Indiana, but the loss most definitely lit a fire in her.
Aguilar rode roughshod over her next three opponents between Nov. 2009 to June 2010, tallying two submission victories over Amanda Duvall and Valerie Coolbaugh.
She was back to winning, doing it where it all started in ATT's home of Florida. Next up on Aguilar's docket was Catia Vitoria. In a largely one-sided contest, Vitoria fell victim to the bread and butter of Aguilar, which is wrestling.
Vitoria had a body kick caught by Aguilar and was then promptly grounded by the latter. Over the next three minutes or so, Aguilar had her way with Vitoria, eventually obtained full mount and caved her face in with elbows for the stoppage due to strikes.
Then Bellator called.
Aguilar was included in Bellator's inaugural women's Strawweight tournament upon her signing with the promotion in June 2010. Her first fight was against fellow ground ace Lynn Alvarez.
Alvarez was made to look like she was not in Aguilar's league when the latter was finished with her. Slam, smother, submit; rinse and repeat. Aguilar submitted Alvarez with a wrestler-friendly arm-triangle choke late in round one.
Aguilar then marched into the 115-pound tournament semifinal against Zoila Gurgel in Sept. 2010. In what was a classic tale of aggression versus counter striking, judges awarded the stout Brazilian a split-decision victory.
It was the first time a fighter was able to halt Aguilar and negate her grappling prowess, but it was the last time she would suffer a loss for a long time.
Aguilar went on to dominate in Bellator, earning victories over future UFC strawweight champion Carla Esparza and Ellis for the second time in 2011. Her fight with "Cookie Monster" in particular was another test of her will.
Matched up against another strong foe in Esparza, who wrestled at the college level, Aguilar was bewildered by the solid takedown defense of the California native.
Aguilar would find success, feeding Esparza a consistent dose of right hands and also by securing a nice slam in round two. Esparza notched her own takedown right at the bell at the end of round two, evening things up heading into the final frame, which was just as close as the first one.
Ultimately, Aguilar garnered a split-decision win, which had to feel fulfilling after dropping a close call to Gurgel less than a year before.
A winner of four-straight tussles, Aguilar headed into her bout with renowned Japanese fighter Megumi Fujii in May 2012 at Bellator 69 with tons of confidence. The result was a unanimous decision for Aguilar, who controlled the majority of the first two frames with her kickboxing.
It was quite the triumph for Aguilar as "Mega Mugu" is incredibly lethal with submissions; not to mention she only lost once previously in 26 fights to Gurgel.
In her next fight, against Patricia Vidonic 10 months later, Aguilar turned in another well-rounded performance.
We saw a new wrinkle in her game in this fight -- her offensive guard. In the second round, when she was put on her back by Vidonic, Aguilar attacked, eventually threatening with an armbar in the closing seconds.
Aguilar met Fujii again, this time in Japan, for what was the latter's swan song in Oct. 2013. The pair met on the feet for the duration of the 10-minute affair, which was marred by eye pokes, on the part of Aguilar, early.
Unfortunately, the fight would be called due to the damage done at the conclusion of round two.
From there, Aguilar became the first female fighter to sign with upstart fight promotion World Series of Fighting (WSOF) in Nov. 2013.
Her first fight was for the inaugural Strawweight strap against Alida Gray. The American Judoka crumbled under the pressure of Aguilar, who secured the third arm-triangle choke victory of her career and, most importantly, the WSOF 115-pound title.
Aguilar ended up making two successful defenses of her title against Emi Fujino -- who she picked apart on the feet and nearly submitted in the third round of their June 2014 battle -- and Kalindra Faria, who she used a workmanlike effort to dispose of over five rounds.
Now, after her UFC signing in June, Aguilar looks to come one step closer toward achieving her goal of winning gold in the Octagon by taking out Nova Uniao's Gadelha.
The jiu-jitsu ace engaged in a hard-fought war with Jedrzejczyk in her second fight in UFC, blanketing her for periods of the fight against the cage and on the ground, even sneaking in several good punches on the when she ducked her head.
Overall, the 26-year-old is a nightmare to handle on the ground, as well as on the feet. Gadelha can stand in the pocket and fire off body kicks, knees or punches. She is also dangerous in the clinch with knees to the body of her opponents and you better watch for her on the break.
What fans can expect to witness in the Octagon tonight on PPV is a unique chess match between two high-level ground specialists, who are not afraid to strike. These gals are far from one-dimensional.
The pair have some familiarity with each other, albeit outside of the cage in a grappling tournament.
"I remember I was a blue belt and she was a brown belt and she was about 145 pounds and I was about 125. And not much happened," Aguilar told Sherdog.com. "She pulled guard and she was trying to attack from her guard but nothing happened. So since she was attacking they gave her the match.
Their fight is an extremely tough one to predict an outcome for, but if I had to give the edge to somebody, I would probably give it to Gadelha because she has home field advantage and she has fought in UFC before.
There is no telling how Aguilar will react to the bright lights. In addition, she has not had the experience fighting outside of the states aside from one time. However, Gadelha is coming off of an eight-month layoff, so we will see how that affects her.
Prediction: Gadelha via split-decision
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