Sherdog’s 2023 Beatdown of the Year

When Marina Rodriguez and Michelle Waterson-Gomez squared off in the feature fight of UFC Fight Night 228 on Sept. 23, both were in need of some redemption, but not equally so. Rodriguez entered the cage on a two-fight skid, but as those losses had come against ranked fighters in Amanda Lemos and Virna Jandiroba, Rodriguez only needed to prove that she was still Top 10 material herself and that at 36, she might still be a factor in the Ultimate Fighting Championship strawweight title picture.

For Waterson-Gomez, the situation felt just a bit more dire. Her own losing streak stood at three, and she had dropped five of her last six, a run that included a loss to Rodriguez in the main event of UFC on ESPN 24 in May of 2021. Just a few months shy of her 38th birthday, it felt as though the former Invicta FC atomweight champ was under a certain amount of pressure simply to demonstrate that she could still compete in the division, let alone as a contender.

It is anyone’s guess whether the two women saw it that way, but when referee Kerry Hatley waved them into action at the UFC Apex that night, Waterson-Gomez definitely fought like the one with more to prove, launching herself at the Brazilian immediately and tripping her to the canvas. It exemplified one half of the seeming contradiction that had characterized Waterson-Gomez’s entire UFC run: Despite the “Karate Hottie” nickname and the cartoon-character-like flying kicks she displayed at open workouts, her best weapons in the Octagon had always been surprisingly stout wrestling and clinch grappling, size disadvantage be damned.

Rodriguez kicked Waterson-Gomez off of her moments later and returned to her feet, and that is when things quickly began to go sideways.

In their first meeting, Rodriguez had won four out of the five rounds, but the fight had felt competitive from round to round. The then-unhyphenated Waterson had found some success exploiting Rodriguez’s shaky takedown defense, but she had also lost long stretches 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 the distance at all costs.

“At all costs” would turn out to be costly indeed. For all her defensive wrestling liabilities, Rodriguez was a decorated muay thai stylist with deadly close-quarters weapons, limited only by her ability to remain upright long enough to use them. And while Waterson-Gomez had managed some success taking Rodriguez down before, this time she would not. The result was that Waterson-Gomez spent the balance of Round 1 desperately trying to stay stuck to Rodriguez, as the taller woman battered her with elbows, knees and short punches. It was the strategic equivalent of running face-first into a woodchipper, and by the time five minutes had elapsed, she looked as if she had done just that.

Trudging to her corner after as clear a 10-8 round as you will ever see without a clean knockdown, Waterson-Gomez sported a gruesome cut beside one eye and a face so lumped up as to be barely recognizable. It was the kind of beating that is frankly rare to see after a first round in the UFC; it generally takes a Pride Fighting Championships-style 10-minute round, and perhaps a Fedor Emelianenko or Igor Vovchanchyn, to do that much damage.

Here is where the other half of the “Karate Hottie” contradiction comes into play because hot or not, Waterson-Gomez is as gritty and tough as they come. In this, she is much like Alan Jouban, a literal magazine model who always fought as if he didn’t give a damn about his face. On that night, true to form, Waterson-Gomez, who has been a mainstay of “most attractive women in MMA” lists for as long as she has been in the sport, showed no indication of wanting to quit even as she spit alarmingly large clots of blood in between rounds.

Round 2 opened up a bit more measured than the first, and it was Rodriguez who had to press the action. Perhaps realizing that Waterson-Gomez was severely compromised by that point, Rodriguez initiated takedowns without fear, shoving her opponent to the ground and punishing her on the way back up. Halfway through the round, Waterson-Gomez could no longer get back up. She turtled up, body defeated even if the mind and spirit remained willing, and as Rodriguez poured on the ground strikes, Hatley finally moved in for the 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—is interesting because if anything, it doesn’t do justice to the magnitude of the beating. It was a difficult fight to watch, even for the most jaded among us, and the aftermath was not much easier. A distraught Waterson-Gomez, upset not over the loss but because she had wanted to keep going, had an emotional cageside exchange with former UFC champ and Jackson-Wink teammate Rashad Evans, who was working as a desk analyst that night. Even the victorious Rodriguez was relatively muted in triumph, her place in the strawweight pecking order secure for now.

Neither woman has fought since, nor has Waterson-Gomez made any definitive statement about retirement. While both women’s next steps remain to be seen, what is certain for now is that Rodriguez vs. Waterson-Gomez 2 is Sherdog’s “Beatdown of the Year” for 2023.