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When MarinaRodriguez and MichelleWaterson-Gomez squared off in the feature fight of UFC FightNight 228 on Sept. 23, both were in need of some redemption, butnot equally so. Rodriguez entered the cage on a two-fight skid, butas those losses had come against ranked fighters in AmandaLemos and VirnaJandiroba, Rodriguez only needed to prove that she was stillTop 10 material herself and that at 36, she might still be a factorin the Ultimate Fighting Championship strawweight title picture.
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For Waterson-Gomez, the situation felt just a bit more dire. Herown losing streak stood at three, and she had dropped five of herlast six, a run that included a loss to Rodriguez in the main eventof UFC on ESPN 24 in May of 2021. Just a few months shy of her 38thbirthday, it felt as though the former Invicta FC atomweight champ was under a certain amount ofpressure simply to demonstrate that she could still compete in thedivision, let alone as a contender.
It is anyone’s guess whether the two women saw it that way, butwhen referee Kerry Hatley waved them into action at the UFC Apexthat night, Waterson-Gomez definitely fought like the one with moreto prove, launching herself at the Brazilian immediately andtripping her to the canvas. It exemplified one half of the seemingcontradiction that had characterized Waterson-Gomez’s entire UFCrun: Despite the “Karate Hottie” nickname and thecartoon-character-like flying kicks she displayed at open workouts,her best weapons in the Octagon had always been surprisingly stoutwrestling and clinch grappling, size disadvantage be damned.
Rodriguez kicked Waterson-Gomez off of her moments later andreturned to her feet, and that is when things quickly began to gosideways.
In their first meeting, Rodriguez had won four out of the fiverounds, but the fight had felt competitive from round to round. Thethen-unhyphenated Waterson had found some success exploitingRodriguez’s shaky takedown defense, but she had also lost longstretches of the fight during which she was stuck on the outside,getting pecked away at by her much rangier foe. Waterson-Gomez,clearly resolved not to let that happen again, worked to close thedistance at all costs.
“At all costs” would turn out to be costly indeed. For all herdefensive wrestling liabilities, Rodriguez was a decorated muaythai stylist with deadly close-quarters weapons, limited only byher ability to remain upright long enough to use them. And whileWaterson-Gomez had managed some success taking Rodriguez downbefore, this time she would not. The result was that Waterson-Gomezspent the balance of Round 1 desperately trying to stay stuck toRodriguez, as the taller woman battered her with elbows, knees andshort punches. It was the strategic equivalent of runningface-first into a woodchipper, and by the time five minutes hadelapsed, she looked as if she had done just that.
Trudging to her corner after as clear a 10-8 round as you will eversee without a clean knockdown, Waterson-Gomez sported a gruesomecut beside one eye and a face so lumped up as to be barelyrecognizable. It was the kind of beating that is frankly rare tosee after a first round in the UFC; it generally takes a Pride Fighting Championships-style 10-minute round, and perhapsa FedorEmelianenko or IgorVovchanchyn, to do that much damage.
Here is where the other half of the “Karate Hottie” contradictioncomes into play because hot or not, Waterson-Gomez is as gritty andtough as they come. In this, she is much like Alan Jouban,a literal magazine model who always fought as if he didn’t give adamn about his face. On that night, true to form, Waterson-Gomez,who has been a mainstay of “most attractive women in MMA” lists foras long as she has been in the sport, showed no indication ofwanting to quit even as she spit alarmingly large clots of blood inbetween rounds.
Round 2 opened up a bit more measured than the first, and it wasRodriguez who had to press the action. Perhaps realizing thatWaterson-Gomez was severely compromised by that point, Rodriguezinitiated takedowns without fear, shoving her opponent to theground and punishing her on the way back up. Halfway through theround, Waterson-Gomez could no longer get back up. She turtled up,body defeated even if the mind and spirit remained willing, and asRodriguez poured on the ground strikes, Hatley finally moved in forthe stoppage at two minutes, 42 seconds. The mauling was over.
What a mauling it was. While punch stats can be wildly misleading,the official strike count—Rodriguez 90, Waterson-Gomez 16—isinteresting because if anything, it doesn’t do justice to themagnitude of the beating. It was a difficult fight to watch, evenfor the most jaded among us, and the aftermath was not much easier.A distraught Waterson-Gomez, upset not over the loss but becauseshe had wanted to keep going, had an emotional cageside exchange with formerUFC champ and Jackson-Wink teammate RashadEvans, who was working as a desk analyst that night. Even thevictorious Rodriguez was relatively muted in triumph, her place inthe strawweight pecking order secure for now.
Neither woman has fought since, nor has Waterson-Gomez made anydefinitive statement about retirement. While both women’s nextsteps remain to be seen, what is certain for now is that Rodriguezvs. Waterson-Gomez 2 is Sherdog’s “Beatdown of the Year” for 2023.
