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Carla Esparza has described her win over Yan Xiaonan as one of the “bloodiest” fights of her mixed martial arts career.
Heading into UFC Vegas 27 on Saturday night, Esparza was riding a strong four-fight winning streak, with many believing she’d earn a UFC strawweight title shot with a win over Xiaonan.
In the end, the bout wasn’t even close. Esparza dominated her opponent before securing a TKO finish in the second round.
Esparza proves a point
After her biggest win since she became the inaugural UFC strawweight champion, Esparza wants another shot at the belt.
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On social media, 'Cookie Monster' joked about just how bloody the fight was...
“Definitely one of my bloodiest fights! Just happy it wasn’t mine this time lol”
Many of her critics were forced to eat their words and, in doing so, they were also given a glimpse into what Rose Namajunas may have to face down the road.
'Thug Rose' became a two-time strawweight queen earlier this year with an emphatic knockout win over Zhang Weili.
While an immediate rematch is possible, the popular opinion now appears to be that she will defend the belt against Carla Esparza.
This is a pretty intriguing rematch for many reasons, the main one being that Esparza beat Namajunas in the final of The Ultimate Fighter 20 tournament.
Esparza submitted Namajunas with a nasty rear-naked choke and, in doing so, won the 115-pound title.
It’s unlikely for some that things would go down in the exact same way, but nobody can deny that Esparza is an incredibly live dog in that fight.
She has the power and wrestling necessary to cause Rose some serious problems and, simply put, Namajunas can’t afford to underestimate her.
The strawweight division is potentially as great as it’s ever been and that’s going to make the title picture pretty fascinating in the next few months and years - with Carla Esparza making up a huge part of that conversation for the foreseeable future, and rightly so.
