While Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) continues to hoover up new faces via Contender Series, UFC Vegas 79 this weekend (Sat., Sept. 23, 2023) and the next card are surprisingly light on Octagon debuts. On this edition of “New Blood,” the series where I’ve definitely run out of creative descriptors at this point, we check out an unbeaten Bantamweight from Invicta, Montserrat “Monster” Rendon.
Montserrat “Monster” Rendon
Weight Class: Bantamweight
Age: 34
Record: 5-0
Notable Victories: None
Mexico’s Rendon picked up a pair of decision wins in Combate Global and one in the short-lived Freedom Fight Night before taking her talents to Invicta. She edged out Brittney Cloudy in her debut, then saw a March return fall through twice.
Though proud enough of her grappling background to use “Montserendonbjj” as her Facebook handle, she spends most of her cage time circling while pumping out jabs and one-two combinations. There’s not much sting in any of her punches, likely because she throws while moving instead of planting her feet, but she throws a ton of volume whether she’s pressuring or backing up under fire.
It’s not the most technically sound approach, relying more on output than clean punching or setups. Her right hand drops below her chin every time she jabs and she has a tendency to lean forward, left hand low, whenever she loads up on the right. She has a left hook, but doesn’t sit down on it enough to get any pepper behind it. Her best tricks are hooking off the jab, doubling up the straight right, and leading to the body, which are commendable but not enough to make up for her awkward footwork and lack of depth to her striking offense.
To her credit, she looked better against Cloudy than she did against Claudia Zamora six months prior; watching the Zamora fight, my only thought was that WMMA finally had its own Leonard Garcia. She still didn’t look great, though, and the Garcia comparison isn’t entirely unwarranted. Two of her last three wins have come by split decision, with the Cloudy fight even earning a mention in Sherdog’s “Robbery of the Year” article for 2022. Rendon spent most of that fight pumping out one-two combinations that either bounced off of Cloudy’s guard or came up well short thanks to the much more fleet-footed Cloudy doing damage and getting out before Rendon could respond.
When she does try to initiate the grappling, she does so by essentially leaning forward and walking into the clinch. I only saw one really quality entry out of her, and that was when she shot under Cloudy’s right hand in the third round of their meeting. The lack of any real level change can make it easy for opponents to find frames or underhooks, and even when Rendon does get a favorable clinch, she doesn’t seem adept at finishing takedowns or even controlling much against the fence. She couldn’t do much from the top against Zamora or Cloudy; in fact, Zamora actually managed to take her down by shooting under one of those loaded-up rights and spent some time on Rendon’s back.
Rendon does seem to be learning on the job and is just three years into her MMA career, but the problem is that she’s already 34 years old. Even in a division this talent-starved, it’s hard to see her finding many wins unless she keeps tapping into that Garcia-style judge hypnosis. I don’t like her chances against debut foe Tamires Vidal; the Brazilian is fairly one-note herself, but seems to pack more power than Rendon and wrestles well enough to grind out “Monster.”
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Vegas 79 fight card right here, starting with the ESPN+ “Prelims” matches, which are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. ET, then the remaining main card balance (also on ESPN+) at 7 p.m. ET.
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This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
