Natalia Silva takes decision over Alexa Grasso
This fight somewhere between the two fights between Adesanya and Whittaker and also Holm-Aldana.
Definitely not calling it bad, but frustrating. It's pretty clear that Lobo is just not teaching their fights how to lead, cut the cage, put pressure on the opposition, etc in a way that is going to help them win fights. Grasso tried repeatedly to pressure behind her jab and double jab and just kept having the same exchange over and over again for like 15 minutes. It was Silva leaning backwards while taking a step up to her left and swinging around that big left hook. And it worked like 70% of the time. Grasso just had no means of closing range. And the couple times she did, she'd end up in an extended exchange where Silva was just the bigger, more determined puncher. For all Grasso's technical strengths, she's so tactically lacking it's frustrating.
As for Silva, she picks up a big win that basically guarantees herself a title fight. That is of course unless the UFC is aiming to make Zhang vs Shevchenko or Fiorot wins and triggers a rematch. So no actual guarantee, I guess. But Silva still has a lot of the same problems she's had before. She needs a dedicated boxing coach to train out some of her wilder and less desirable habits. For as much as she was moving, she was really just reacting to Grasso as opposed to setting real traps. Moving backwards for 15 minutes at a time is fine when you're clearly winning but if she's fighting someone like Shevchenko or Zhang or Fiorot next, I can see her struggling to really get the range and exchanges she wants or keeping that pace high without more tools.
