UFC on ESPN+ 59: Jessica-Rose Clark vs Stephanie Egger - Prediction - 2/19/22
Jessica-Rose Clark vs Stephanie Egger
Jessica-Rose Clark (11-6 w/ 1 NC) would kick off her UFC career at flyweight, where she would defeat Bec Rawlings and Paige Van Zant before losing to Jessica Eye. “Jessie Jess” would then go to bantamweight and go 2-1 in this division as well. She would acquire her first UFC finish in that stretch however by hammering Sarah Alpar. Despite sitting on the sidelines for a year, she would keep the momentum going in her most recent effort, unan-decisioning Joselyne Edwards in October. The Australian has never been finished.
Stephanie Egger (6-2) makes the UFC octagon walk for her 3rd time this Saturday. The decorated Judoka used her grappling expertise to amass a 5-1 record on various regional fight scenes before getting a call up to the big show. She would drop her debut to Tracy Cortez, but right the ship in her sophomore effort by ground and pounding Shanna Young back in October. The fighter from Switzerland will stand 1 inch taller and hold 4 inches of reach over Clark.
How They Match Up
Egger remains a pretty raw prospect. She looks to have some power in her hands but her striking technique and noticeably, her defense is lacking. What she really wants to do is get the fight to the mat but she seems to be struggling to transition the gap between judo and MMA grappling. Her double leg takedown usually comes from pretty far away and is thus easy for her opponent to defend. However, the bonus of those shots is she usually winds up in the clinch, where she does her best work. The hip throws she landed over Young last time out helped make that a pretty easy win as her top control was good enough to get some rounds in the bank before the finish presented itself.
Clark is a pretty well rounded prospect who mixes it up well and seems to come in with a decent game plan to exploit her opponents’ weaknesses. We saw her outstrike Sarah Alpar handedly and out grapple Joselyne Edwards with no issue. She’s still fairly green as well and you can point out a small pile of tactical errors on any given fight, but her good moments/decisions far outweigh them.
Clark really should win this comfortably but there’s one big red flag I see. Whether she’s going the striking route or the grappling route, she seems to find herself in the clinch very often. Despite landing some very nice body lock takedowns against Edwards, she’s going to probably throw the fight away if she tries that against Egger. Edwards is absolutely terrible so this may have caused Clark to be overconfident in an area where she really shouldn’t be for this fight.
Not that I’m willing to hang my hat on that point. Clark should comfortably outstrike Egger and if she does shoot in for a takedown she still could have success. We saw Egger wind up on bottom and controlled by Cortez a number of times in her debut. If she gets hip tossed by a solid judo player in the first round, I’d say she has the fight IQ to make the adjustments in subsequent rounds as well. Give me Clark to win a safe decision.