Ok, I got to watch the Amanda Serrano fight and I put on my Analyst hat since I had been waiting to see how she would would do for a long time. I apologize if this is a long post.
Score: I scored the fight a draw.
Overall:
Fought a very tough opponent. Opponent was mainly a grappler with average wrestling and average striking. You can see how athletic and quick Amanda is and that will be a real nice asset as her career continues.
Striking:
Clearly was the better striker which is something we should see from a boxer. This was a major red flag for Heather Hardy. Heather has yet to look good striking in MMA. Amanda had trouble checking and blocking kicks. She tried to incorporate leg kicks and body kicks to her striking. They still need work but I love that she is expanding her striking. At points in this fight she did a terrible job of cutting off the cage. If you look back you will even see points where both fighters were parallel to the cage. Understandably she had problems blocking elbows.
Conditioning:
Cardio seemed fine when striking. She was not ready for the drain that grappling puts on your cardio though. You can see all the clinching slowly draining her but once she had that grappling exchange that ended with her in a guillotine she was gassed. Once her cardio went her striking defense turned into Ronda. She also gave up an easy takedown when she was gassed.
Clinch Grappling on Cage:
I was surprised at how well her clinch grappling was. You can see how much work she put into it. Her opponent just could not get her down and if she was even close to going down she would pop right back up. A weakness with this area is that she does not know how to disengage a clinch. She was in them for way too long. Learning how to do this could help with her cardio.
Takedown Defense in Center:
She did well in this area for this being her debut. She stopped a deep shot but would have been taken down if she did not fall against the cage. The second big shot she was taken down easy but she was gassed at that point.
Ground Grappling:
This was to be expected but she was TERRIBLE in this area. like I said previously, you could see all the work she did to improve her cage clinch grappling. She looked lost from the very 1st second her back in the mat. 1st she fell for the grappler trick of falling down to draw you in. This was the beginning of things going badly for Amanda. She got tricked to try and GnP her opponent but just ended getting tied up in grappling exchanges that ended with Amanda in a tight guillotine.
Right after the takedown in the 3rd round she had a chance to go for half guard but she gave up side control. During side control she lift her leg to stop full mount attempt but she lifted the wrong leg and pretty much handed full mount to her opponent. Her opponent made a mistake and went for half guard instead. She made no attempts to even try and get full guard. In the midst of her opponent trying to strike in half guard there were opportunities for Amanda to force a scramble but she did not. She pretty much just gave up full mount. She was lucky she did not get RNC.
Overall, this was a very tough fight for her debut. She showed some great things but she also has a lot she needs to improve on. This fight might have ended in a draw but I finished watching this fight thinking that Amanda is clearly the best prospect of all the girls that came from boxing so far. If she fills those holes she can be a good MMA fighter. Only time will tell how well she will be able to fill those holes.[/]
I thought she would have more power. The girl she fought was 3-4, undersized and stepped in on less than a weeks notice. I didn't really see the promise.
