Women’s Flyweights
Mizuki Inoue (13-5) vs. Yanan Wu (10-2)ODDS: Inoue (-135), Wu (+115)
It took an injury to Luana Carolina, but Inoue has finally made her way to the UFC. Inoue is only 25 years old, but she has been a top prospect for much of the past decade, making her name stateside with a win over Bec Rawlings weeks before her 19th birthday. It seemed like only a matter of time before Inoue ruled over the strawweight division, given her success at such a young age, but she never wound up totally making it over the hump. Beyond the stereotypical Japanese MMA problem of being too patient to choose her well-practiced strikes, Inoue also found trouble being controlled by stronger wrestlers, often content to work for submissions from the bottom as she lost rounds. A shift to training in New York seemed like it paid some dividends in her most recent bout against Viviane Pereira, as she looked more aggressive on the feet and more considerate of control on the ground. However, she oddly started having issues making weight. She barely missed the strawweight mark for the Pereira fight before being scrapped entirely from a strawweight tournament in May. To that end, she makes a move to flyweight for her UFC debut, and Wu provides a stern test to see how well that will work.
Potential remains the name of the game for China’s Wu, who is still just 23 years old. Wu did not face much in the way of competition prior to her time in the UFC -- her one fight of note was her one loss to Yana Kunitskaya -- and that has mostly played out as expected during her time in the Octagon. Gina Mazany managed to wear her out in a grinding fight, and while Wu looked improved for her second bout against Lauren Mueller, that also looked like a losing effort until she pulled out an armbar. As of the Mueller fight, which was in November, Wu is still almost completely reliant on twitchy aggression. However, she is in a spot where she can improve rapidly from fight to fight, so it will be interesting to see how she looks here.
This is Inoue’s fight to lose. Wu has little going for her outside of a size and physicality advantage, and Inoue looks like she has finally figured out how to turn those issues into a winning fight, at least against physically stronger strawweights. On the feet, Inoue is just a much better fighter. Wu is going to press things enough to make this fun, but this should be a long-overdue successful debut for one of Japan’s best talents. The pick is Inoue via decision.
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