#ufc307

Props to Rountree and his team. Great gameplan. You know that Pereira is going to lean back and retreat in straight lines. So you train your extremely fast, powerful puncher to punish that. Straight punches, sometimes doubling up on the rear hand with the open guard match up. Keep Pereira honest by having that right hook on a trigger. Pereira looked ready to take the fight over in the 2nd round before missing on that head kick. The right hook comes while Pereira's back is still turned and then all of a sudden it's another Rountree round.

But Pereira came correct with the leg kicks and attritive damage. The leg kicks to Rountree's lead leg at space did a great job of helping to slow him down. Attacking the body with those kicks also helped wind him in the third. The jab was also fantastic. Kept it on Rountree, who was trying to counter with the rear hand off it but swinging and missing. Proved too much for Rountree who fell apart in round 4. Stumbling about while Pereira switched between picking him off with smart singular shots and just going ham for the finish.

Not an action fight and very much looking like a fight between two fighters with a foot out the door, but a nice send off effort for Carla Esparza. Pennington came out uncharacteristically hot. Marched straight into the pocket and started throwing heat. Had Esparza really badly hurt before getting taken down and controlled for the last 2.5 minutes.

From the 2nd on, it was primarily a tepid kickboxing match with Pennington's corner advising her to fight from the outside in order to prevent the takedown. While Esparza had success blitzing forward because Pennington was looking to set her feet, she was also eating leg kicks. Like a lot of them. And when Pennington did lead, she scored as Esparza did not have the defensive skills to evade or make her pay with the takedown.

Hats off to Esparza. Crazy career. From fighting Megumi Fujii on the untelevised Bellator prelims for a shot at 100k to first ever Invicta FC strawweight champion to first ever UFC strawweight champion to first ever fighter to lost the title and win it back like 7 years later.

Huge KO by Buckley late to secure himself the win against his biggest named opponent to date. From the onset it looked like the plan was to explode forward and try to tie up with Wonderboy. Get to his hips or the body lock and then try to grapple him to the ground. He managed to push Thompson backwards into the fence and get him down a couple times but it wasn't keeping him down. But Thompson was also allowing himself to be pressured into the fence by a guy who was hopping straight forward. Again, age. Those types of entries are things Wonderboy used to make his bread and butter with the counter on. But Buckley is legit fast so while Thompson did land some nice counters moving backwards, it wasn't enough to keep Buckley from just charging him along the fence. And that's what cost Thompson. Instead of circling or using his arms to frame off, he throws up a half hearted kick with his back to the fence and eats an wound up right hook from Buckley that crumbles him to the floor and stops the fight. This is why I don't like people kicking on the back foot. You're inviting someone to step in and hit you while you have a foot off the ground.