UFC 157: Rousey vs. Carmouche - Feb. 23rd.

Also...in case anybody was wondering about the way the rest of the women's Bantamweight division looks, the UFC confirmed 4 more fighters last night

-Sarah Kaufman
-Julie Kedzie
-Germaine de Randamie
-Amanda Nunes

All 4 of them are Strikeforce holdovers so there's no new faces. I assume de Randamie has confirmed she's dropping to 135 though since she's a natural Bantamweight.

Dana White said there was 11 signees though, and they've only confirmed 10. Any thoughts on who the 11th might be? The only other women I can think of that might still have contracts from Strikeforce are Julia Budd and Hiroko Yamanaka, both of whom are featherweights. Yamanaka has lost 2 (3 if you count Cyborg) in a row, so it could be Budd, though she has a fight upcoming at Featherweight, and hadn't fought in Strikeforce since Nov 2011.

I would assume that if Leslie Smith beats Kaufman, she'll get a UFC contract. Shayna Baszler deserves a shot too if she picks up a win whenever she fights next, given that her only losses in the last couple years are to Alexis Davis and Sara McMann, both of whom are UFC signees now.

I'd love to see Tara LaRosa make a push for at least one UFC fight since she's probably best off at Bantamweight from now (after her weight cutting troubles at Invicta and how sluggish she ended up as a result) and still has a couple years left in her.
 
chadsexington said:
Dudes...I had a question for you all. A WMMA fighter sent me a tweet tonight when I asked my TL about the Oscars and we had a quick tweetversation about this apparent controversy surrounding Ronda tapping during the face crank? I'm sure it's a non-issue, but did anybody get that feeling that she was tapping while reaching for Liz's ankle? I didn't even notice it during the fight, and since we were at the pub, there was no rewind to take advantage of. Her tweet was the first I'd even heard of it, and we both agreed it was probably much ado about nothing.

Any of you guys tapgate?
Click to expand...

I don't think she tapped. Looked like she was trying to shake Carmouche off her back.
 
First off, she didn't tap. I'm not on twitter (thank goodness), so I had no idea about "tap-gate".

Now onto other things. Dana said that they were looking to add five more fighters on top of the ten they'd already had signed (hadn't heard there was already an eleventh). As for who the eleventh is my hope is that it would be Marloes Coenen; however, I don't know how deep the riff still runs with Golden Glory. Would love to see her back down at 135lbs and inside the Octagon.

As for who will round out the 15 woman division I suspect Shayna Baszler, Sarah D'Alelio, and Leslie Smith (whether she beats Sarah Kaufman or not), and possibly Kaitlin Young. I would also like to see them bring in Hitomi Akano come over from Japan, but I doubt that.

Although she won't be on this initial influx of fighters, because she has a fight upcoming with Bellator, I really want to see Holly Holm come to the UFC at some point in the not too distant future. She's only 2-0 in MMA; however, she has amassed 32-2-3 boxing record and is widely regarded as the number 1 welterweight (boxing equivalent) in the world. She trains at Jackson's which may also be a strike against her now.

The last thing on this topic. I like the fact that the UFC is carrying on a working relationship with Invicta. It is going to be a very fluid situation I believe between the two organizations in the near future.

One more thing, number 16 will be Cyborg. She asked for her outright release, but her contract with Zuffa, much like many of these other contracts I belive (don't actually know) have clauses to allow them to take fights in Invicta. She'll have the one fight in Invicta in April, I don't know if it's at 145 or 140 I've heard both, if that goes well she'll sign back with the UFC. Tito was apparently backstage in Anaheim with Cris doing media availabilities after the fights.
 

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