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#2. UFC women's flyweight division: Joanne Wood vs. Alexa Grasso
The speed at which current UFC flyweight queen Valentina Shevchenko gobbles up challengers means that any fighter in her division who can win a handful of bouts in a row has a chance of earning a shot against her.
With that considered, while Joanne Wood (No.7) and Alexa Grasso (No.11) aren’t actually that highly ranked at 125 pounds, there’s still an outside chance that either woman could surge up the ladder, particularly as Shevchenko’s already beaten the UFC fighters ranked No.1 to No.4.
Despite this, it seems unlikely that Wood will be able to pull off such a run at this point. The popular Scottish fighter has lost three of her last four bouts in the octagon and at the age of 35, it’s hard to see ‘JoJo’ making a sudden surge in her skills.
Overall, she’s a solid kickboxer with dangerous ground skills, but as we’ve seen over her six-year octagon career, she struggles to really weather punishment, can be outworked down the stretch and also finds it hard to get off the bottom against strong takedown artists.
Grasso, on the other hand, is probably just about reaching her prime. At the age of 28, it once looked like she’d become a contender at 115 pounds, but her decision to move to flyweight in 2021 definitely appears to be the right one.
The native of Mexico has extremely fast hands and dangerous boxing skills. She’s somewhat underrated on the ground, too, being capable of landing takedowns and scrambling with the best of them.
Grasso’s big weakness is her lack of finishing skills – she hasn’t put an opponent away in eight fights in the octagon – but anyone who can outpoint Maycee Barber and Karolina Kowalkiewicz should be highly regarded.
Can Grasso put ‘JoJo’ away this weekend? Wood is definitely not the most durable fighter, but Grasso simply doesn’t seem to possess the power in her hands to really hurt her foes. With that said, her volume and boxing skills should still be enough to earn her a decision here.
The Pick: Grasso via decision
