Preview: UFC on ESPN 52 Prelims

Women’s Flyweights

Veronica Hardy (7-4-1, 2-4 UFC) vs. Jamey-Lyn Horth (6-0, 1-0 UFC)

ODDS: Hardy (-112), Horth (-108)

A well-matched women’s flyweight bout kicks off festivities. Hardy’s return in March was a nice bit of catharsis, as she came back from retirement to put together the most complete performance of her career. A lifelong martial artist, Hardy was exceedingly raw as a competitor when the UFC picked her up in 2016, as she was just months into her professional career. As expected, Hardy struggled as she learned on the job despite having some obvious potential. She has impressed as an aggressive grappler and has a solid striking game buoyed by her speed, but her overall game has never been well-connected—an issue made worse by a constant size disadvantage. That led to a lot of fights where Hardy would show flashes but never put together a complete winning performance, and she was seemingly done with fighting until her March pairing with Juliana Miller. It was an advantageous matchup for Hardy—Miller’s combination of aggression and subpar athleticism allowed the Venezuelan to stay ahead in both striking and wrestling exchanges—but it was still nice to see everything click for her at least once. She will look to repeat the trick against Horth. A career flyweight prior to her late-notice UFC debut in April, Canada’s Horth impressed in stepping up to take on Hailey Cowan at bantamweight. Faced with some physical parity, Horth showed some solid range striking in pivoting from her usual bullying approach. At 125 pounds, Horth is not particularly spectacular as a large and slow-footed fighter, but she puts her physical advantages to good use, looking to make her fights a bruising grind in the hopes that she can win a war of attrition. There could be some tricky moments for Horth, as Hardy is likely to outmaneuver her for stretches on the feet early on. However, the read is that with Hardy unable to rely on her wrestling and grappling against a much stronger opponent, she will instead have to fight behind an inefficient striking game that could cause her issues later on. The pick is Horth via third-round stoppage.

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