Daniel Cunningham
This past Saturday in the co-main event of UFC Vegas 114, we saw a pretty big fight in the strawweight division. Former title challenger and dangerous striker Amanda Lemos (15-6-1) took on surging contender Gillian Robertson (17-8).
Lemos fought for the title two and a half years ago, but she’s had a really tough stretch since then. Just goes to show how quickly you can fade in this game after a run to the title. While Lemos had been slipping, Robertson had been surging.
Heading into this fight, I thought that Robertson would be in good shape if she could survive the first round. The first round did get tough for her at times as she struggled to get Lemos down and ate some pretty good shots.
In the second round, Robertson started to take control with her grappling. Lemos did have some moments, but it was a round for Robertson and I had it 19-19 heading into the final round. The final round was a clear win for Robertson with her grappling which gave her the fight at UFC Vegas 114.
What’s next after UFC Vegas 114?
After the win, Robertson made it clear that she would love to fight for the UFC strawweight title against Mackenzie Dern and she has a strong case. With this win, she’s going to take Lemos’ spot at fifth in the rankings which puts her right in the conversation for that title shot.
Virna Jandiroba just lost to Dern for the title and Yan Xiaonan hasn’t fought since last year where she lost to Jandiroba. With that, there’s only two contenders ahead of Robertson and that’s Tatiana Suarez and Zhang Weili.
Of course, Weili deserves the shot more than anyone should she come back down to 115. Weili vacated the UFC strawweight title to fight Valentina Shevchenko for the flyweight title. She lost that fight and by all indications, she’ll likely return to strawweight but there’s no timetable there.
Tatiana Suarez fought Weili for the title last February and was dominated. She did bounce back last September with a win over Lemos. Tying this back to Gillian Robertson, I think her next fight is very clear. Either she’s going to face Mackenzie Dern for the title or she’s going to face Tatiana Suarez in a title eliminator.
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