Sherdog.com’s 2015 Beatdown of the Year

2. Rose Namajunas vs. Paige VanZant
UFC Fight Night “Namajunas vs. VanZant”
Thursday, Dec. 10
The Cosmopolitan | Las Vegas
The beating Rose Namajunas put on Paige VanZant showed us how quickly schadenfreude can turn to pathos when blood starts to spill.

Since debuting in the UFC just over a year prior, VanZant was instantly an object of Zuffa obsession. She was fresh-faced, telegenic, had tons of athletic upside and was not even old enough to legally drink yet. It was a promotional dream for the UFC. The promotion put her on network TV in her second and fourth UFC bouts, the latter a UFC Fight Night main event, and made her the most recent symbol of ham-fisted UFC favoritism. From the moment VanZant was installed as a UFC headliner for Dec. 10 in Las Vegas, it is fair to say that a wide, fiery swath of the MMA populace wanted to see her lose, regardless of who she fought.

Initially, she was set to take on Joanne Calderwood, but the Scottish striker went down with a knee injury in the final days of October. This is where the tale of VanZant’s beatdown really begins. If VanZant had fought Calderwood, she may have found a copacetic style matchup for her tireless-if-unrefined approach. Calderwood’s a much more skilled, savvy striker, no doubt, but her slow starts and relative lack of foot movement could have given VanZant all the openings necessary to land a lunging right, run her into the fence and initiate her bullying tactics. Instead, Calderwood’s spot was filled by Namajunas, who rolled up in The Cosmopolitan on fight night like 115 pounds of stylistic poison.

From the bout’s outset, VanZant could do nothing to Namajunas, who was simply a dreadful challenge for her to meet at this point in her career. “Thug Rose” was quicker on the feet with much more polish and could easily counter or dodge VanZant’s aggressive rushes. When VanZant could put hands on her, her mauling style of takedowns just allowed Namajunas to initiate scrambles into dominant positions even faster; a world where VanZant had most of her success throughout her career was now nothing more than a coffin for her to lie down in.

Early in the first round, Namajunas smashed open VanZant’s cheek with a torrent of elbows, starting a flow of blood that would worsen throughout the bout, but the die was cast with two minutes to go in the frame. VanZant clinched, got a grip and tried for a headlock throw, a technique she had consistently used to strong effect to date. Instead, Namajunas blew it up and easily took her back, bashing her with punches and threatening with fully-applied rear-naked chokes -- a pattern of crushing pressure that would persist for the next 20 minutes.

It never let up. The entire fight was a bloodied, overwhelmed, outmatched VanZant, clearly cognizant that she had no arrows in her quiver, getting mauled by a fighter just as aggressive and twice as evolved. By the end of the third round, the Las Vegas crowd, as well as those watching at home and even many who critiqued VanZant’s promotional push, were simply rooting for the 21-year-old’s displays of valor and pain tolerance. In two nights of fight cards at The Cosmopolitan, no moment drew louder cheers than when VanZant gutted her way out of a gruesome armbar in the fourth round, her arm bent backwards over itself, her elbow pinned to Namajunas’ thigh. It was but a moral victory, however, as she had nothing left in the fifth round, where Namajunas took her down, grabbed her neck once more and squeezed for the finish.

Despite the conservative scoring from the official judges, including Glenn Trowbridge’s unfathomable 40-36 Namajunas scorecard, this fight was perpetual domination. Only round two is a clear 10-9; rounds one and four were clear 10-8 stanzas, never mind a full-blown rear-naked choke in the third round that would have finished most fighters and warrants such consideration, as well. It was the sort of decisive beating that even enlightened its victim.

“I got outclassed in every way. I just need get back with my team and game plan and work on my technique,” VanZant said after the bout, trying to keep her tears in check. “I took a little bit of damage to my face, but I want to get back in there as soon as possible. I have the heart. I have the aggression. I don’t have the technique yet. I think everyone knows that.”

If not, Namajunas let them know, bloody, loud and clear.

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