The MMA Daily

Outside the main event, this Bantamweight clash between Ji Yeon Kim and Joselyne Edwards represents the only other women competing on the card. Kim, comes into this fight needing to right the ship. Having lost three consecutive fights and four of the last five, the South Korean is in jeopardy of seeing her UFC tenure end. Meanwhile, Edwards recently ended a two-fight losing streak. Picking up an important win in her Featherweight debut, Edwards will drop down back down to 135 pounds looking to notch her first UFC winning streak.

Having largely fought at Flyweight during her UFC tenure, Kim will look to rejuvenate her career up a weight class. An active striker, who fights behind her jab, Kim has often racked up high strike totals. In the last two fights alone, Kim landed 292 significant strikes. However, the South Korean’s defense has been her demise. Absorbing 229 significant strikes in those past two fights, as well as 5.64 per minute throughout her career, Kim has often been a punching bag. One that Edwards will look to beat on, as she is purely a striker. An active and accurate one at that, who is landing 5.33 significant strikes per minute at a 57% clip. Having not to worry about wrestling, given Kim has never landed a takedown, Edwards should be able to look her best.

Despite coming into this fight on short notice, I’m siding with Edwards. The biggest gripe of the Panamanian is that she is susceptible to being controlled by wrestlers and grapplers. Given Kim is none of those, has porous striking defense and the fact that Edwards just put up 164 significant strikes in her recent victory – gives me reason to believe Edwards puts on a show in this fight. With that said, I predict that Edwards win via TKO.