Read on Twitter
This is going to be a thread of various factors that I think will play a play a large role in how Rose vs Zhang plays out and why I think Zhang has a good chance of beating her. Will try including videos and gifs. Gonna update this over the next few days.
I will start with Zhang Weili’s takedowns and why I believe they will be extremely effective against Rose.
Zhang is a high level Sanda artist and she loves going for trips from the clinch which is her main avenue to takedowns and she does them extremely well.
Zhang is a high level Sanda artist and she loves going for trips from the clinch which is her main avenue to takedowns and she does them extremely well.
When opponents start throwing knees in the clinch Zhang weili often uses this as a chance to get her opponent on the ground.
Here Zhang uses her strength to try throw around her opponent to get them moving their feet so that she can land her trips inside the clinch. Zhang doesnt wait around in the clinch she forces you to stay active and moving.
Rose has only fought 1 wrestler being Carla Esparza the rest are strikers who don& #39;t shoot for takedowns or trips and throws inside the clinch apart from Andrade and Waterson. Since her loss to Carla in 2014 Rose has had only 11 TD& #39;s attempted on her and 4 of them landed.
Of those 11 attempts 7 were from Andrade and she completed 3 of them. 2 of those 3 were high crotch takedowns which Zhang doesnt do but one of them is something she does as you should be able to tell. Also considering that Andrade is 5ft 1 and Rose is 5ft 5 this was interesting
Michelle Waterson was the other person to take Rose down and it was with a takedown Zhang also uses.
In the Carla fight Rose was takendown from caught kicks which Zhang does often go for if given the chance and even attempted it against Joanna.
Going to continue this thread tomorrow and talk about Rose seemingly being susceptible to knees in the clinch
If it’s not trips and throws in the clinch Zhang Weili loves to use knees and she manages to generate a lot of power in them.
She utilised it well in the Andrade fight especially and if you think about it this led to the Andrade stoppage since it seems she was hurt to the body from the knees as you can see her abandoning her position after getting hit by them a lot and tensing her body.
Rose seems to not do to well in clinch exchanges when her opponent starts throwing knees or just has a good understanding of it. You first see glimpses of this in the Angela Hill fight.
And you also see it as recent as the Joanna rematch. In the only Clinch exchange in the fight where Joanna actually tries to throw offence in there she won the exchange fairly easily. Why Joanna doesn’t clinch often in her fights considering her background I will never understand
But the only fighter to have seemingly found this out and took advantage of this was Karolina. She noticed this in the first round and kept on using it to take chip away at Roses Gas tank and do damage and win the fight decisively.
Karolina was destroying Rose in the Clinch exchanges and made it quite obvious that Rose has a hole there.
Karolina just kept chasing the clinch and working the body and it made Rose slow down fast. She showed no respect to roses offence and kept going for the clinch where rose wouldn’t be able to jab or use her footwork.
By The 3rd Rose was much slower as well as more stationary and Karolina was the fresher fighter and still was going for the clinch knees.
Rose doesn’t hit extremely hard and isn’t too likely to knock you out in one punch (aside from first Joanna fight) so Karolina biting down on her mouth piece and not letting Rose hit her with a punch she didn’t see coming to potentially knock her out proves to be effective
Rose was a shell of her self come the 3rd and Karolina had took her apart with knees alone to get the victory. Jessica Andrade didn’t use any knee in the clinch because she too short at 5ft 1 and opts for Slams and body hooks instead. I think Zhang would be able to use this.
Will talk about Zhangs most used strike being leg kicks and how well she does it tomorrow. I& #39;m not going to show Roses leg kick defence because it& #39;s almost non existent. It& #39;s was surprising watching her UFC fights. She probably hasn& #39;t checked more than 10 kicks in her UFC career.
Rose Doesn’t really defend leg kicks and rarely manages to evade them. Even in what’s regarded as her best showcasing of her skill in the first Andrade fight before losing she was eating a lot of kicks till she became more stationary. Here are all the leg kicks Andrade threw.
Zhang Weili throws a lot of leg kicks and in particular does inside leg kicks extremely well as she often manages to land accurately and get out of range for counters.
Her fight with Jessica Andrade showed her inside leg kick well despite being a quick fight. You even see her jab off of it when she see’s Andrade try to come in. She also manages to counter while retreating from her kicks.
Zhang Weili also throws hard outside leg kicks too and is capable of throwing them mid combination and still be able to maintain power in her punches after.
She also throws hard outside leg kicks to end combinations against people who try to stay out of punching range or who try to circle out during her combination.
In her fight with Veronica, Zhang would throw a outside leg kick whenever her opponent started circling out to Zhang& #39;s power side.
Zhang also likes to counter with her kicks, she sometimes throws a jab to bait out a reaction then fires a kick when she gets one.
Each fight Zhang throws a high amount of kicks with her lead leg and she can miss on occasion but she throws her kicks in a way where she can retreat quick if she misses or fire off a side kick if her opponent tries to attack her when she is out of position.
