Paul's Preview: UFC Andrade vs. Zhang (Patreon)

The UFC returns to China and for the first time, a title is on the line. Reigning strawweight champion Jessica Andrade puts her belt on the line against Weili Zhang, who is riding a ridiculous 19 fight win streak. Outside of Cris Cyborg, no one in the female division has had that kind of winning record, but a deeper dive into her opponents reveals an athlete who has been more or less been padding their record by defeating less-than-stellar competition. To give you some context, out of the 20 opponents that Zhang has faced (23 if you’re counting her kickboxing record), only 4 have Wikipedia entries about them. It’s not the best metric to determine ability, but it is telling that the UFC doesn’t care about records as long as they can build a story about how China can have their first UFC champion. Zhang has a tough task ahead of her, as Andrade is 7-1 at strawweight and coming off a great win over Rose Namajunas. There’s no question that Andrade will be the toughest fight in Zhang’s career, and many are already writing off her chances. However, a crafty game plan, patience, and a good ol’ shady judges’ decision could be the key for a Zhang upset. Let’s start by breaking down what Andrade does well.

Andrade started off her UFC career as a bantamweight and went 4-3. It was clear from the get-go that she was undersized for the division and would benefit tremendously if a flyweight division was around. With no real indication that the UFC would start a 125-pound weight class, Andrade dropped down to strawweight and has never looked back. Her strength carried over from her days at 135 pounds and she would visibly bully her opponents around. Standing at 5’2” with a 62” reach, she’s on the smaller side of the strawweight division. It doesn’t help that her orthodox stance and preference for hunching over and swinging hooks makes her even smaller. Andrade bills herself as “Baby Cyborg”, but her style actually has more in common with Wanderlei Silva. Andrade’s style of absorbing strikes while waiting to counter is easy enough for coaches to prepare for, but once a fighter is in there, they’re always thrown off by her speed and durability. John Lineker has almost the exact same style, and in 16 fights in the UFC, only four have managed to beat him. It’s not that this style is the most dominant, it just leaves no room for you to make mistakes. Against a fighter who loves to throw hooks, straight punches are usually the key to victory. In Andrade’s case, the jabs tend to give her the most problems, but the moment an opponent starts to throw straight punches, it gives her an opportunity to counter with hooks to the head and body. Against Angela Hill and Karolina Kowalkiewicz, Andrade waited for them to throw the straight right before unloading with hooks. Against Kowalkiewicz, Andrade scored a knockout by timing her right hook the moment she saw the straight coming. Even if you manage to successfully tie Andrade up in a Thai clinch and hammer her with knees, Andrade will do her best Diaz brothers impression and start swinging hooks to your body until you decide to disengage. It doesn’t matter how many strikes you land on Andrade, unless you knock her out clean or sweep her legs, she will continue moving forward and work her punches up and down. It can be incredibly taxing for a fighter to try and stay mobile for 15 minutes, and in a championship fight, they must be even more economical with their movements. By targeting your body and forcing you to move off your back foot, Andrade saps away at your gas tank and has you making small (but costly) mental mistakes. For this style to be effective, it’s a given that your durability must be off the charts.

Durability and power don’t always go hand in hand, but when a fighter has both it does make certain attributes easier to shine. Mark Hunt made a career out of having a granite chin and KO power in his hands, and even with greatly diminished speed he was able to give a lot of heavyweights’ trouble in the striking phase. Andrade is nowhere near as powerful as Hunt, but she makes it up with her speed and underrated footwork. Despite moving forward in a straight line, she has shown the ability to cut off opponents and force them into her hooks. One of the ways she accomplishes this is by throwing multiple hooks on the same side, ala Ricky Hatton. Since so many fighters are accustomed to blocking one side and then the other immediately, throwing off this rhythm temporarily confuses them and it makes them consider moving into the opposite side of the hooks, where Andrade has set up…another hook. It’s a simple but effective strategy, and if this is focused on the body, it also acts as a great way to slow down the opponents even more. Andrade is also so much stronger than many of her peers at strawweight, and she can ragdoll them around. Against Tecia Torres, Joanne Calderwood, and Angela Hill, there was no question that Andrade was the physically stronger one in the matchups. Andrade slammed Torres & Calderwood effortlessly to the ground and she shucked off Hill’s clinch attempts and threw her to the fence. The only other comparable strawweight (in terms of strength) is Cláudia Gadelha, but Andrade had no problem muscling her around either. Against such a juggernaut, how does Zhang stack up?

Truth be told, there’s not a lot that we know about Zhang. She has 3 fights in the UFC so far, and outside of a quick submission victory over Jessica Aguilar, both of her wins have been by decision. Standing at 5’4” with a 63” reach, she will enjoy a slight size advantage over Andrade (although almost every fighter Andrade has faced has had height and reach against her). Zhang comes from a Sanshou background (essentially, Chinese kickboxing) and her striking has elements of that style. Despite being a newcomer in the UFC, she looks composed in all her fights and does a good job of blending her striking and grappling, especially when you consider that her MMA career started in late 2013. Sanshou allows throws and sweeps from the feet, and Zhang’s takedowns almost exclusively come from the clinch. To complement her takedowns, Zhang showed a decent ground game against Aguilar by executing a trip takedown right into side control. Although Sanshou doesn’t emphasize elbows, Zhang had no problem throwing them repeatedly and bloodying up Aguilar. After cutting her up bad, Zhang moved to mount before transitioning into a triangle/armbar with plenty more elbows thrown in for good measure. In longer striking exchanges, we see Zhang throw tons of kicks, especially the left low kick thrown from the orthodox stance. To cover distance quickly and discourage counter hooks, Zhang pairs this with a side kick immediately after. This two-kick combo allows her to score points while giving her the space to move out if she thinks the opponent will continue to advance, something that will come in handy against a pressure fighter like Andrade. In addition to covering distance and acting as pressure deterrent, her side kick can be thrown straight to the body in order to siphon off that gas tank and keep you from recklessly charging in. Against Danielle Taylor, Zhang waited until Taylor was convinced that she was far away enough before unloading a side kick to her midsection.

Zhang will also mix in some flashier kicks to get the opponents thinking of other threats. She used a bicycle style kick to surprise Taylor (and switched to southpaw briefly to do so) and her spinning kicks against Tecia Torres was used effectively when Torres marched forward after she thought the low licks were no longer in play. Zhang’s boxing is fairly basic and serves mostly as a way to remind opponents that a left straight can be thrown if they’re only concerned about the kicks. She does her best boxing work at close range, which could be a problem against someone like Andrade. It’s hard to say how she matches up in the physical strength department, but she seemed to have little trouble in taking down the likes of Tecia Torres and Jessica Aguilar, something that can be attributed to her skills but still requires great physical effort. This is a fight and not a power lifting contest, so whoever is stronger matters mostly in positions where both of them will clinch up, and in that case it’ll be interesting to see if Zhang’s Sanshou style takedowns will be effective against Andrade. However, does Zhang have enough tools to win?

Although Hill and Rose Namajunas lost to Andrade, they showed how effective the jab and lateral movement are against her. The only fighter to successfully keep the pace and volume for 5 rounds against Andrade was Joanna Jędrzejczyk. For 5 rounds, Jędrzejczyk put on a clinic on how to successfully utilize an out-fighter’s strategy, and it resulted in one of her best performances. Jędrzejczyk was constantly throwing jabs while feinting, mixing in front kicks to Andrade’s midsection, moving laterally before Andrade could set her feet, and mixing in oblique kicks to Andrade’s legs to keep her at distance. Whenever Jędrzejczyk engaged, it was always on her terms and never Andrade’s. Even though Andrade has more knockout power and strength, she was never able to get close enough to execute her game plan. If Zhang wants to win, she’s going to have to follow a similar strategy. Zhang has shown that she’s no stranger to throwing kicks and keeping opponents at a distance, but whether she can do that against a caliber of opponent like Andrade remains to be seen. Her side/low kicks and trip takedowns could be used to surprise Andrade and throw off her timing, but it’s going to have to be used with expert precision.  Zhang is going to have to play matador and constantly stay on the move and throwing a back kick against someone like Andrade is probably not the best idea. It’s a tall order no matter how you slice it.

For Andrade, everyone knows what she likes to do, it’s just a matter of how well conditioned and prepared you are to stop her. Andrade isn’t like a Jon Jones or a Tony Ferguson where you don’t know what the next move will be, you know exactly what her M.O. is. Andrade will look to close the distance where she can hammer in her hooks to the body and head, mostly whenever you throw a straight so she can counter. Andrade likes moving her head slightly off-line so she’s in range to connect, and if your back is close to the fence, all the better since you’re less likely to dart out. If you try and clinch up and out-muscle her, she will oblige in your challenge and go for a slam of her own. Namajunas was doing everything right until she made one mistake while being picked up by Andrade, and it resulted in her being knocked out after a huge slam right onto her head. Andrade can end fights quickly, which is why Zhang will have to mind her p’s and q’s. Robert Whittaker was constantly on edge when he fought Yoel Romero twice since at any point Romero’s explosive movements could end the fight as well. However, Zhang has shown some defensive holes in her striking, especially when it comes to her kicks. Zhang has been taken down when her kicks were mis-timed, and she can be bullied against the fence. Aguilar backed up Zhang at the very beginning of their fight, and instead of moving laterally or trying to fight out of the position, Zhang took her down and decided to work from there. This kind of strategy isn’t the best against someone like Andrade, who has excellent takedowns of her own and is used to tossing around 135 pounders. Zhang has also been lured into brawls by Torres and Taylor, and this fits right into another one of Andrade’s strengths. Honestly, if the fight goes the distance, I will be shocked and simultaneously worried, since we know that UFC isn’t bound by any state athletic commission any time they go overseas. Who’s to say that the people at the top of the UFC feel that one female Brazilian champion is enough, and that it’s worth sacrificing a bit of their legitimacy to break into the Chinese market? Conspiracy theories aside, this fight could end quickly or be a painfully boring fight. Let’s hope it’s the former.