JULIANNA PENA vs MILANA DUDIEVA
Julianna Pena is returning to action after suffering a horrific leg injury that caused her to tear her ACL, MCL, LCL, Meniscus and Hamstring. The injury was so severe that many experts predicted that she’d be out of action for 2 years. Now, after just 18 months, the young Bantamweight prospect is returning to action against Milana Dudieva. Before Pena sustained her injury, the UFC were building her up as a bright young prospect in the Women’s Bantamweight division. The injury added a roadblock to what was shaping up to be a promising career. At just 25 years old, Pena is still young enough to get her career back on track and the UFC seem keen to help her by giving her an easy opponent in Milana Dudieva. Long layoffs always take something out of a fighter, but if Pena shows up and fights half as good as she did on the Ultimate Fighter, she’ll absolutely destroy Dudieva. Julianna Pena is well rounded, with decent boxing and solid grappling. She’s also extremely aggressive, fights at a very high pace and she has the cardio to back it up. Dudieva is slow, one dimensional and lacks takedown defence. She also has poor cardio, low output and lacks athleticism. Dudieva has absolutely nothing for Pena in this fight. Dudieva’s biggest weakness is that she fights like a heavyweight. She’s very flat footed, she has no ground game and she doesn’t throw that many strikes. She has a powerful overhand right and she spams that punch in an effort to knock her opponent out. Problem is. It’s not that easy for a 135lbs female fighter to knockout another 135lbs female fighter. This means that Dudieva often gets left behind on the judges score cards and she’s going to find it really difficult to pick up any notable wins in the UFC. Milana Dudieva has a striking background, but I feel like Pena will have a significant advantage if this fight stays standing. This is largely down to the fact that Pena has a staggering 13 inch reach advantage over Dudieva. A reach advantage this big is always significant, but it’s even more significant when the fighters only stand around 5 ft 5 tall. A 13 inch reach advantage would be huge in the Heavyweight division, let alone Bantamweight and this huge reach differential is going to make it extremely difficult for Dudieva to get inside and land anything significant. Julianna Pena should easily be able to win this fight by pressuring Dudieva, taking her down and beating her up on the ground. This is a really difficult fight for Dudieva and I don’t give her much of a chance of winning. [adrotate group=”121″]MY BETTING TIP: 5 Units [5% of your bankroll] on Julianna Pena to win at odds of 1.38 | -263 | 19/50
