UFC Fight Night 173: Brunson vs. Shahbazyan - Predictions and Picks

#2 UFC Flyweight Division: Joanne Calderwood vs. Jennifer Maia

Joanne Calderwood's form has improved massively since her move to 125lbs

The UFC has thrown this co-main event together at relatively late notice and to be honest, they’ve done a great job. This is a pretty tremendous fight on paper, and the winner could almost certainly go onto fight Valentina Shevchenko with the UFC Women’s Flyweight title on the line.

Of the two, Calderwood has far more UFC experience. She came into the promotion via The Ultimate Fighter 20 and while she came up short in her quest for the inaugural Strawweight title, she was expected to do well overall. However, a number of disappointing losses always kept her from true UFC title contention at 115lbs.

When the UFC introduced its female Flyweight division in 2018 though, ‘Jo-Jo’ was immediately on board. She’d already fought in the UFC’s first female Flyweight fight back in 2016 – a one-off fight with Valerie Letourneau that ended with Calderwood winning by TKO.

Since the move to 125lbs, she’s been excellent. Wins over Kalindra Faria, Ariane Lipski and Andrea Lee have only been off-set by a loss to point-fighter extraordinaire Katlyn Chookagian.

At heart, ‘Jo-Jo’ is a Muay Thai striker who prefers to use her knees and elbows inside the clinch. The issue she had at 115lbs was largely that she’s not the best natural athlete. That meant that quicker, more explosive fighters such as Cynthia Calvillo and Jessica Andrade were able to give her plenty of issues, particularly on the ground.

At 125lbs though, she doesn’t appear to have that kind of disadvantage. And so if she can keep a fight on the feet and at her range, she’s definitely dangerous.

Maia is actually a similar fighter in a lot of ways, especially standing. Like Calderwood, she’s a hard-hitting Muay Thai specialist, and she came to the UFC in 2018 after a strong run as the Invicta Flyweight champion.

Her UFC career thus far has seen her go 2-2, beating tough veterans Roxanne Modafferi and Alexis Davis, but losing to Chookagian and Liz Carmouche. Her losses were both pretty disappointing as she was simply outworked, but will that be the case this weekend?

Personally, I doubt it. Calderwood is arguably the better striker – she certainly did better on her feet with Chookagian – but Maia has enough to in the least be competitive there. The issue for ‘Jo-Jo’ meanwhile is that Maia is by far the superior grappler.

Calderwood isn’t terrible on the ground per say – she did submit Faria – but it’s definitely notable that two of her UFC losses have come by tapout. Calvillo also used her ground game to outpoint the Scot, while she found herself in trouble on the mat with Cortney Casey at points too.

Maia meanwhile is a genuine Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt with five submissions to her name. And she’s already shown a willingness to use takedowns, as she threw Modafferi around in their fight and even grounded the tricky Chookagian at one point.

This should be a close fight – and given both women’s penchant for going the distance, it could go either way. In the end though I’ve got to go with the fighter with more tools to win, and that’s Maia. If she finds herself in trouble standing then the takedown will likely be her way out. Expect her to take on Shevchenko at some point in 2021.

The Pick: Maia via unanimous decision