Preview: UFC Rio Prelims

Women’s Bantamweights

Beatriz Mesquita (5-0, 0-0 UFC) vs. Irina Alekseeva (5-3, 1-2 UFC)

Odds: Mesquita (-600); Alekseeva (+450)

“Bia” Mesquita looks to make a big splash in her Octagon debut against “The Russian Ronda,” and perhaps jump the line in the bantamweight contenders’ queue.

Much like Alex Pereira when he joined the UFC, Mesquita’s signing as a 34-year-old with just five professional wins might seem mystifying without context, and that context is even more compelling in Mesquita’s case: Pereira is one of the best kickboxers of his era, but “Bia” might be the greatest female jiu-jitsu competitor of any era—or at least in the team photo alongside the likes of Kyra Gracie and Michelle Nicolini. She is a 10-time Mundials gold medalist and a four-time medalist at Abu Dhabi Combat Club, including dual medals in her weight category and the absolute division as recently as last year.

That is the good news. The other news is that Mesquita is barely a year removed from her MMA debut and, aside from her grappling, extremely raw as a fighter. The further news is that while we will need to wait for an official tale of the tape, the stocky Brazilian may well be the shortest woman in the UFC women’s bantamweight division. That isn’t an absolute bar to success, but it is one more challenge on what will already have to be an accelerated developmental process, and even at the Legacy Fighting Alliance level, where she won the title, she has shown herself to be very hittable, with poor head movement and predictable entries.

On the ground, Mesquita has thus far been exactly as advertised. None of her opponents have been able to stop her from passing their guard and taking back control, and from there the ending has been academic. The difficulty has been, and will probably always be, getting to that point.

That makes Alekseeva a suitably intriguing first test in the UFC. As her nickname implies, even if it is hilariously optimistic, the Russian is a judoka by background and preference. In practice, her moments of actual judo prowess in the UFC have been few and far between, at least offensively, but her size, strength and experience make her a load to deal with in the clinch. Outside of those positions, she is nearly as raw a striker as Mesquita, but carries good power. That power carries over to her ground strikes as well.

Mesquita is the biggest favorite on the card, but there is far more spoiler potential here than in the average fight with a 6-to-1 line, and my podcast co-host Keith actually called for the upset on our preview show. Mesquita has been tagged and hurt by less capable fighters than Alekseeva, and while the Russian’s judo is overstated, she has good takedown defense and is generally hard to push around. I don’t think we see the upset, at least in part because I don’t trust Alekseeva to avoid going into her opponent’s wheelhouse, but there is a very real possibility that we see Mesquita struggle in a way that casts her future as a potential title contender into serious doubt. Mesquita by second-round submission.



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Filho vs. Carpenter
Petrino vs. Petersen
Mesquita vs. Alekseeva
Rocha vs. Nicoll
Walker vs. Usman
Polastri vs. Kowalkiewicz
Lacerda vs. Oliveira