Preview: UFC Rio Prelims

Strawweights

Julia Polastri (13-5; 1-2 UFC) vs. Karolina Kowalkiewicz (16-9; 9-9 UFC)

Odds: Polastri (-450), Kowalkiewicz (+350)

Former strawweight title challenger Kowalkiewicz, just days shy of her 40th birthday, will aim to snap a two-fight losing streak and reaffirm her place in the division against a woman a dozen years her junior in hometown favorite Polastri.

Kowalkiewicz’s UFC run has been full of enormous highs and crushing lows, all of which seem less extreme in hindsight. The undefeated run that brought her to a shot at her countrywoman Joanna Jedrzejczyk nine years ago was not quite as impressive as it seemed at the time, outside of her hard-fought win over Rose Namajunas. The dismal five-fight skid that ate up most of three years of her career was not actually that bad, outside of a miserable performance against Jessica Penne, but the four-fight win streak that followed has aged terribly, coming as it did against four fighters who quickly washed out of the promotion.

The irony of it all is that even at 40, Kowalkiewicz remains more or less the same fighter she has been since the beginning, and is fighting about as well as she ever has. She remains a high-volume, low-power kickboxer who thrives if she has the sharper footwork, but struggles when physically stronger women can either punch their way into close quarters with her or, more often, corral her against the fence. She enters UFC Rio on the back of consecutive losses to Denise Gomes and Iasmin Lucindo, but they are both burly, athletic women of the kind that have always given Kowalkiewicz fits and would likely have been a handful for her at any point in her career.

Polastri is not in the mold of those strawweight bullies, and in fact is closer to Kowalkiewicz in her approach. “Psycho” might be a bit of an overreach as nicknames go, but she is definitely more aggressive and harder hitting than the Pole. She has surprising power in her hands, especially for a smallish 115-pounder, and her kicks are excellent. She uses calf kicks as well as front kicks up the middle to sap her opponents’ energy, disrupt their rhythm and do damage. However, she has gone 1-2 in the UFC against good but not stellar opposition, and in victory as well as defeat, she has struggled to really take over fights. Lupita Godinez outhustled and outwrestled her, Josefine Lindgren Knutsson dictated terms on the feet, and even Cory McKenna made her visibly uncomfortable in striking exchanges, despite none of them being overwhelming offensive forces.

This matchup favors Polastri for obvious reasons, as the far younger fighter. While Kowalkiewicz has been aging gracefully, one obvious change has been the gradual slowing of her once record-setting workrate. That constant storm of punches and kicks once made Kowalkiewicz a safe bet to sway the judges in otherwise close rounds, but with that gone, Polastri is left as the harder-hitting, more aggressive and more durable fighter, and this is a matchup in which she might actually take the driver’s seat and stay there for the duration. That is the prediction, and the pick is Polastri by decision, probably winning all three rounds.



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