Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

With the crowning of the inaugural women's strawweight champion, Carla Esparza, the most recent series of The Ultimate Fighter can be laid to rest. Perhaps we can finally axe the show, as it did little but make villains out of several fighters that many went into the show admiring.

That being said, it was excellent to have these top tier fighters competing under normal circumstances again. A two round exhibition match, training away from home, amid reality show drama is not indicative of what a fighter can really do when training specifically for an opponent, in their own camp, with their own coaches.

Aisling Daly picked up an impressive armbar as her opponent attempted to recover half guard. Armbars while the opponent has one of your legs trapped are obviously much trickier than the standard variation, but guys who get good at them can have a lot of success. Attacking with the armbar is one of Kron Gracie's famous counters to opponents attempting to get under him and into deep half.

Tecia Torres beat up Angela Magana, but didn't look her usual self as she ran in time and time again with the right hand. We're used to seeing a more calculated, varied Torres even when she's going all out on offense. While she did throw her excellent side kick on the end of her combinations (Bill Wallace style), she pretty much abandoned the excellent low kicks she used against Felice Herrig and others. It was a little disappointing to see such a one note performance against an opponent whom she could clearly out strike. Props are due to Magana for simply sticking around to take it though.

K.J. Noons demonstrated once again why the UFC need to change their gloves to a design which encourages balling of the fist. Noons is one of my favourites for his offensive creativity alone, but he certainly has a knack for getting himself in trouble with his extra-curricular activity in the cage. In this bout there were fence grabs, butts of heads, and eye pokes—and the bout only made it thirty seconds into round two. It must be said that these eye pokes seemed unintentional, and it was a terrific shame because both men had been going almost exactly strike for strike on the feet. The bout was ruled a no contest and we can only hope that they do it again soon.

Yancy Medeiros picked up an impressive stoppage as he back kicked Joe Proctor and flurried on the winded fighter, finishing the bout with a guillotine. The back kick, which Medeiros had attempted numerous times in the contest, finally found its mark as Medeiros feinted Proctor onto the fence with repeated knee raises to look like kicks.

The only quibble one could have with Medeiros' performance was that he looked to be trying too hard to imitate his training partners, the Diaz brothers. Where Medeiros' best performance to date, his complete dismantling of Yves Edwards, was a varied, all around performance with counter strikes and front kicks to the body, this one seemed to be an attempted Diaz boxing clinic with some back kicks thrown in. The biggest danger is that Medeiros has narrowed his stance, and is consequently eating low kicks and losing his balance just like the Diaz brothers.

Elsewhere on the card one of my favourite fighters, Joanne Calderwood, won her UFC debut against Seo Hee Ham. Why do I like Calderwood so much? She has the best stepping knees in MMA, spare perhaps Alistair Overeem. Against Ham, who is ordinarily an atomweight, Calderwood used her length well. Ham often looks to take an outside low kick and step in with a straight left down the pipe—and she's ended some fights that way. Ham even bloodied Calderwood's nose the exact same way at the end of round one. Calderwood's strength in the clinch and length on the feet proved too much for Ham, and Calderwood took all three rounds unanimously.

Charles Oliveira put on an entertaining and active grappling clinic against Jeremy Stephens. Spending most of round one fighting off an armbar attempt, Stephens' night didn't get much better. There's always a few great moments to surprise you when an Oliveira fight hits the mat, but one exchange which I enjoyed was Oliveira's attempt to mount Stephens, and Stephens managing to reverse.

Oliveira gets underneath the near elbow with his hips, and the far elbow with his shoulder. From here he attempts to grapevine Stephens' legs, move his hips on top, and walk his hands around to twelve o'clock to secure mount. This is a favourite transition of Shinya Aoki and Pedro Sauer. Stephens does a wonderful job of sitting up into Oliveira, and as Oliveira attempts to go to Stephens' back, Stephens follows him into guard.

In the main event, the veteran, Carla Esparza took the straw weight title by dominating and finishing the young up-and-comer, Rose Namajunas. The lesson of this fight was that if you're an offensive striker—one who looks to use set ups, feints and creative combinations to land telling blows—you need to be way out of the way when you're not attacking, and you need to be careful about how unpredictable you attempt to be.

Esparza's first takedown came off of a flying round kick, and was really just given away by Namajunas. If you jump into a technique you commit your weight, you can't start sprawling or fighting off a single leg in mid air.

The second came as Esparza bounced out of range, then bounced back into range just as Namajunas was picking her leg up to try one of her feints, kicks or spinning attacks. And from round two, the takedowns came easier, and Esparza's work from the top wore Namajunas down quickly.

Inside Namajunas' guard, Esparza did an impressive job of staying active with strikes—actual strikes, not show strikes—and keeping a knee in the middle to prevent Namajunas from attacking with submissions. It's a basic idea, but at the highest levels of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu you can see guys like Tanquinho keep a knee pinned on the opponent's crotch, rendering the traditional trinity of guard submissions attempts—triangle choke, armbar, omoplata—completely ineffectual, as well as just not being at all comfortable. Esparza repeatedly snuck that knee in the middle and used it to stand and rain blows.

The finish came as that knee in the middle turn into a knee cut pass, and Namajunas turned in to present her back. Esparza took the back and finished with a rear naked choke.

Namajunas didn't do a bad job, she was exciting to watch on the feet, and Esparza had to weather some hard blows, including that nasty rear leg side kick, but the experience gap was obvious. With all that said, this was far from a bad coming out party for the women's straw weight division—some exciting fights, some quality finishes, and a convincing win for the division's first champion.

Pick up Jack Slack's ebooks at his blog Fights Gone By. Jack can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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