Leading off the prelims of UFC Vegas 79 are two much-needed prospects in the women’s 135 lbs division, Tamires Vidal and Montserrat Rendon.
Rendon will be making her debut with the UFC after a perfect 5-0 start to her MMA career. Vidal got an impressive win in her debut and is looking to score another finish to continue her climb towards the top 15.
Betting Odds
The odds favor the Vidal over the debutant, but the line has shifted slightly towards Rendon throughout the week:
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Fight Breakdown
Tamires Vidal is 25 years old and is 7-1 as a pro. She’s a powerful striker with a willingness to engage in grappling and chase submissions. We saw her take down Ramona Pascual in her debut with a flying knee to the body that was too much for Pascual to fight through. Vidal has a lot of areas to improve in, but she was a solid base to be successful at 135 lbs.
Vidal’s stand up has improved slightly over her last few fights but still lacks technique. She’s usually looking to set up or wildly swing the right hand from her orthodox stance. In her last fight before her UFC debut, she was outclassed on the feet by a former boxer who made her swing and miss constantly. She doesn’t set up the right hand very well but it carries a lot of power and has begun to set up her right kick. This is a wrinkle we saw her add against Pascual; she uses the right hand to hide the kick that follows from the same side, targeting mostly the body and leg.
The grappling of Vidal is submission-oriented, often giving up position to go for heel hooks and other submissions. She doesn’t get a lot of takedowns herself, but when she does try to get the fight to the ground, it’s usually trips from the clinch. She uses the looping right hand to force clashes between her and her opponent, giving her the opportunity to snag the clinch.
Tamires is a young fighter who’s improving steadily but she has a lot of room for improvement. On the feet, she gets caught with a lot of strikes as she seems so focused on finding the right hand that she doesn’t see shots coming back at her. Her motor also seems to be lacking as she’s looked gassed by the second round and her looping shots become even more telegraphed.
Montserrat Rendon makes her debut with the UFC after a perfect 5-0 start to her pro MMA career. Rendon is a tough, aggressive striker who doesn’t stop coming forward or throwing hands the entire 15 minutes. She’s gone the distance in all of her fights thus far and has kept the same pace of each and every round.
Rendon’s striking has been simple but effective in her time on the regional scene. She relies on using her jab to pull her opponents in for her to move back and counter with the right hand. She’ll throw the occasional counter left hook when she wants to escape to her opponent’s right, but otherwise, her striking mainly consists of jabs and crosses. She’s more than willing to engage in wild exchanges where she’ll take damage to land her own shots. These situations don’t deter her from coming forward as she’s often pushing the pace directly after they leave the pocket, pumping the jab and measuring for the right cross.
This striking will need to improve if she wants to make it at the highest level of MMA. Her hands are sluggish and have a bad loop at the end that leaves her wide open for counters. Her success in wild exchanges has largely been due to her being more willing than her opponent to throw down; when she’s challenged, she’s often the slower striker and takes the worse shots. At distance, she seems to react to any sort of feint thrown out. The level of fighters she’s faced thus far haven’t been able to effectively capitalize on these issues but she’s going to get pulled into counters against UFC-level strikers.
Despite having two professional grappling matches under her belt, Rendon isn’t able to utilize her wrestling well in the cage. She doesn’t vary it up much in terms of grappling entries; she likes to ram her head through her opponent’s chest like a linebacker trying to tackle a running back before grabbing the body lock. When she has her opponent here, she relies on the outside trip to attempt to get them down and, when it isn’t there, tries to break to strike again.
Rendon is undefeated because of her aggression and toughness. She hasn’t been the most technical striker, isn’t super powerful and isn’t posing too much of a wrestling threat. What she does excel at is pushing the pace constantly and throwing hands regardless of what’s coming back at her. So far, she’s been able to overwhelm her opponents (and judges) with this pressure and hasn’t gotten caught with anything major.
While Vidal is far from the most technical striker on the feet, she should be willing to throw hands with Rendon and if they’re both landing Vidal is likely to get the better of the exchanges. While Vidal has had more success on the ground than Rendon, Rendon does have pro grappling experience and Tamires hasn’t shown the highest IQ on the ground when going for submissions so I don’t think she’s going to find success here should she try to take her down.
Rendon’s pace and toughness are going to be key to winning this one. If she can avoid the big right hand from Vidal and land her straight punches at range, she can wear on her opponent and pull away come the second and third round. They’re both strong bantamweights in the clinch so I’ll be curious if Vidal will be able to get her takedowns from this position or if Rendon will be able to fend her off and keep the fight going at range.
Prediction
This is a much closer fight than the odds have it in my opinion. Vidal will need to find the spots to land her power shots on the constantly moving Rendon and if the fight goes all three rounds, that will favor Montserrat. The power of Vidal and hit-ability of Rendon should give Tamires the advantage in the wild exchanges that are sure to be frequent. I’m not willing to bet against the power of Vidal but also not willing to bet against Rendon’s durability so I’m taking Tamires Vidal to win on the moneyline.
Prediction: Tamires Vidal to win -225 (BetUS)
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