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Former title challenger @RockyPMMA returns Saturday to face Marion Reneau at #UFCVegas3 | : @benjaminduffy pic.twitter.com/kopXyEylgI

— Sherdog by Mandatory (@sherdogdotcom) June 17, 2020

Women’s Bantamweights

Raquel Pennington (10-8) vs. Marion Reneau (9-5-1)

ODDS: Pennington (-140), Reneau (+120)

Pennington has overachieved throughout her career, but it is difficult to see where she goes from here. In the early stretches of her UFC tenure, she was a classic example of a fighter being better than her record. At one point, she had five losses in 10 career fights but had the misfortune of facing Cat Zingano, Leslie Smith, Jessica Andrade and Holly Holm within the first three years of her pro career. After that first loss to Holm, Pennington’s years of improvement finally started to pay off with a four-fight winning streak that eventually ended with a career-defining win over Miesha Tate. Things quickly went south, however, as Pennington spent the next year and a half recovering from career-threatening injuries suffered in an ATV accident. Once she made her way back to the Octagon, things did not go much better. Pennington—never much of an athlete or finisher—was immediately thrown into a title fight against Amanda Nunes and just kept running into a wall until she was stopped in the fifth round. A win over Irene Aldana in July showed that Pennington was still among the top handful of fighters on the bantamweight roster, but with losses to Nunes and Germaine de Randamie, along with another defeat in her rematch against Holm, in her last four fights, there seems to be a clear ceiling to where “Rocky” can go at the moment. For now, it is up to Pennington to keep winning fights to stay relevant while hoping things break her way. Reneau is the next opponent in front of her.

Reneau has done particularly well for someone who was deemed too old to be on the same season of “The Ultimate Fighter” that featured Pennington. She eventually earned her way to the UFC, and at 37 years old, “The Belizean Bruiser” hit the ground running with a dominant win over Alexis Dufresne and a shocking submission of the aforementioned Andrade. Holm quickly put an end to Reneau’s run through the division, but she did well to rebound. The consensus holds that she deserved to win her split decision loss against Ashlee Evans-Smith, and Reneau went undefeated in her next four bouts. However, in recent years, Zingano and Yana Kunitskaya have exposed the flaws in Reneau’s game. While she has the physicality to run over the lower stretches of the division, she is mostly limited to dangerous moments against better athletes. Sometimes that works—Andrade and Sara McMann were both defensively lax enough that Reneau could latch on to fight-ending submissions—but in her last two bouts, she suffered clear decision losses. This fight takes place on Reneau’s 43rd birthday, so time is obviously short. A win here would do wonders if she wants to get into the title picture before the end of her career.

Reneau’s physicality does make this an interesting fight, but Pennington is the much more functional fighter and should be able to emerge victorious. Reneau can be brought out of her shell if her opponent applies pressure and looks to go to war, but Pennington has never been much of a high-paced fighter. As a result, this will probably wind up as a lukewarm kickboxing match, though things might get interesting if Pennington looks to press the clinch—a position where Reneau might be strong enough to take over. Generally speaking, Pennington is mindful enough that a finish will not be there for Reneau, and without that threat, the former title contender is the one who actually attempts to win rounds. The pick is Pennington via decision.

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