In this week’s TUF 23 blog, UK strawweight Lanchana Green recaps an eventful night out in Las Vegas and gives her assessment of Amanda Cooper vs. Jamie Moyle.
As we head into the next fight in the season, we – Team Claudia – are 5-0 ahead with Amanda Cooper looking to keep our unblemished streak running. I partnered with Amanda quite a bit throughout the series, with us both coming from a striking background we found the drills flowed really well when we went together. She hits hard, I can vouch for that, and we had some great sparring sessions. But she also works hard and keeps herself girly – which I thought was great.
I didn’t get to see her opponent Jamie Moyle an awful lot in the house. But when I did speak to her she was super cool, I think she’s like a silent beast. Quiet and polite outside the Octagon, then an aggressive warrior inside it!
By this time in the show, Renan Barao had joined our coaching team. He was brilliant. He didn’t speak much English but we were used to this by now. He would always give me little tips and pointers through demonstration and hand gestures if he saw me make mistakes.
I got to spar with him too, which was one of the highlights of the season for me. Going in with such a high level competitor, he was super technical and fluid. I really enjoyed it. It was truly one of those sessions where you’re like, ‘Man, that was awesome’.
This week, UFC president Dana White treated us to a night out at Absinthe, which is a Las Vegas show full of acrobatics and comedy. What I liked most was putting a dress on and some heels for the night, it was a nice break from constantly wearing training gear.
During the episode, Josh and Myron had to perform a dance for Jamie, which was absolutely hilarious. Fair play to them all for getting up there, I would have been super embarrassed.
The funniest moment of the night though, and I think everyone would agree, was when one of the performers, whilst wearing only a thong, sat on Eric’s lap. None of us had ever seen Eric move so fast. He was out the door in seconds!
Anyway, back to why we were there – here’s my assessment of the action from Amanda’s fight with Jamie:
Round 1: I thought Jamie edged it with strikes landed, securing the takedown and keeping top position for the remainder of the round. However, Amanda didn’t look like she had taken much damage so I thought it was really close.
Round 2: Jamie secured another takedown and spends the first half of the round in top position. However, once Amanda got back to her feet she landed some hard knees and an elbow that cut Jamie immediately. The fight ended up on the ground again but this time with Amanda on top landing some nasty ground ‘n’ pound.
In all truth, I thought it was going to go to a third round. But if you look at damage done, Jamie’s face was pretty messed up. I actually didn’t want it to go to a third if it meant her taking more shots to that cut.
So, we are still in the lead with Abdel from our team up next against Josh Stansbury. I think Abdel has an extensive striking background from what we spoke about and Josh looks solid and a good all rounder so this is definitely one to watch next week.
