Marina Rodriguez has elite striking numbers when not dealing with takedowns
After some apparent hesitancy, the UFC is moving forward with a main event between Marina Rodriguez and Michelle Waterson with some slight twists. The bout will be the obligatory five rounds, and the fight, which was originally set at strawweight, will now take place at 125-pounds.
In her last fight, Rodriguez was staring down the possibility of three-straight losses when she faced off against the immensely hyped Amanda Ribas. Despite being as high as a +305 underdog, Rodriguez came through with a second-round stoppage. In the process, she picked up her first victory in her seven-fight UFC career where she surrendered a takedown.
Ribas scored a takedown with 3:35 remaining in the first round and held that position until the bell. The second round was a different story as Rodriguez dropped her opponent in the first 35 seconds and eventually did enough to convince Herb Dean to stop the fight.
In a lot of ways, the Ribas fight was a microcosm of Rodriguez’s UFC/DWCS career so far. In fights where she has surrendered one or zero takedowns, she is 4-0. When she has allowed multiple takedowns, she is 0-1-2. Takedowns have also greatly disrupted her striking game. When allowing one or zero takedowns, Rodriguez landed 6.47 sig strikes per minute, while absorbing 2.27, for a +3.75 striking differential. In fights where she surrendered more than one takedown, she landed only 3.33, absorbed 3.13 and had a +0.20 differential.
The +3.75 differential would rank fifth among all ranked fighters, while the +0.20 would be below average among the same group (+0.90).
At a glance, it seems like Waterson should be able to score takedowns against Rodriguez. She averages 1.52 landed takedowns per 15 minutes, which is basically right at the average for a ranked fighter (1.54). However, she has struggled in this department recently. Against Joanna Jedrzejczyk she went one for nine of her takedown attempts (11%), and against Angela Hill, she went one for 18 (6%). While takedown accuracy is normally not really a valuable measure since strong wrestlers chain together attempts, but the lack of success in these fights certainly stands out.
If Waterson is unable to score takedowns, the fight may favor Rodriguez. Waterson has a negative striking differential at -0.42, which ranks 156th among ranked fighters. However, the measure is somewhat deflated by her performance against Jedrzejczyk. In that fight, Waterson was outlanded 180 to 58. 27% of her absorbed significant strikes came in that one fight.
Excluding the fight against Jedrzejczyk, Waterson’s striking differential rises to a much more respectable +0.36. However, it still lags well behind Rodriguez differential of +1.85.
It will be interesting to see who benefits from the longer fight. On one hand, Waterson has fought into the championship rounds three times, while Rodriguez has never had a fight longer than 15 minutes. On the other hand, the longer fight occasionally favors the fighter with the better shot at finishing. Waterson has not finished a fight since 2016, while Rodriguez has two stoppages on her UFC/DWCS record. Her two knockdowns in seven fights are not really a sign of huge power, but Waterson has never scored a knockdown in the UFC.
Rodriguez’s +1.85 differential could pose a serious problem for Waterson. “The Karate Hottie” has eight wins in the UFCStats database and none of those have come against a fighter with a differential currently higher than +0.73. Waterson could greatly reduce Rodriguez’s striking prowess by mixing in her wrestling. However, that will be a tough task to continually accomplish over the course of the 25-minute fight.