Andrea Lee
Age: 29
Nationality: American
MMA Record: 8-2
UFC Record: Debut
Notable Wins: Rachel Ostocich
Notable Losses: Roxanne Modafferi, Sarah D’Alelio
Last Fight: Submission win over Jamie Thorton
Fighter Profile: A fomer LFA champ, Lee is one of the better flyweight prospects out there at the moment. She is a well-rounded fighter who has earned finishes on the feet and on the mat and she is riding a four-fight win streak here into her UFC debut. Lee has very good grappling and improving striking and she has cleaned up a lot of the holes in her game that were exposed earlier in her career in Invicta. Now in the UFC, Lee’s Octagon debut was delayed by an issue with USADA, but now that that issue is cleared up she is ready to fight and emerge as a contender in the women’s flyweight division.
Veronica Macedo
Age: 22
Nationality: Venezuealn
MMA Record: 6-1-1
UFC Record: 0-1
Notable Wins: Karine Gevorgyan
Notable Losses: Ashlee Evans-Smith
Last Fight: TKO loss to Ashlee Evans-Smith
Fighter Profile: After a 2016 that saw her fight seven times and go undefeated in her first six before getting signed to the UFC, Macedo was viciously knocked out by Ashee Evans-Smith in her UFC debut and hasn’t been seen from since. She took over a year off of fighting in order to heal up and improve, and at 22 she has the potential to do just that. While we saw her ground game get exposed in her UFC career, maybe the time off will help her out and she’ll look better dropping down to 125lbs. It remains to be seen if that will happen, and likely not in this fight as she is taking on a more experiened and quite frankly better fighter in Lee. But with Macedo’s natural marketability, perhaps she’ll get a few more chances in the UFC to show what she’s got even if she loses this fight.
Fight Breakdown: Although I feel like Lee is a bit overrated as a prospect, at least she’s on a nice win streak and at least she has been staying active. Macedo only has one UFC fight which she looked terrrible in and she hasn’t fought in over a year since. That’s a recipe for disaster against a hungry fighter like Lee who is going to look to make a good first impression in her UFC debut. I see Lee taking Macedo to the ground and eventually locking up a fight-ending submission.
Prediction: Andrea Lee via submission
