Preview: UFC Fight Night 245 Prelims

Women's Strawweights
Jessica Penne (14-7) vs. Elise Reed (7-4)
Odds: Reed (-175), Penne (+145)

Jessica Penne is doing a solid job of chugging along, even as she nears her 42nd birthday. Penne wasn't necessarily a guarantee to stick around when the UFC launched their strawweight division in 2014; she had a more decorated career than many of her peers under her belt, but did so as an atomweight whose reedy frame had a questionable translation up to 115 pounds. Penne's high-water mark is probably still her first post-TUF fight, a win over Randa Markos that earned her a title shot against then-champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2015, as the next half-decade was essentially a wash for the Californian; she suffered two frustrating losses, then had her career derailed due to injuries and issues with the drug testers. But she looked surprisingly sharp in winning her first two fights after returning from a four-year layoff, refocusing on her grappling and going undefeated in 2021 with wins over Lupita Godinez and Karolina Kowalkiewicz. Unfortunately, Penne hasn't found much success since then, as Emily Ducote and Tabatha Ricci were both able to handle with her with consistent aggression, and there is some question as to how well she can fare going forward; she's in far from the worst form of her career, but she does feel a bit anachronistic in a division that's improved greatly in terms of athleticism from her heyday. At any rate, she at least gets a forgivable matchup here athletically against Elise Reed, who also started her career as an atomweight. Given time and space to work, Reed's a fun fighter that can flit around and outpace her opponents with a lot of striking volume, but she's also run into a clear athletic ceiling; there's a consistent thread of her losing to fighters willing to pressure and out-wrestle her, provided they have the speed to catch her. There is some intrigue here given that Reed's faced a lot of compact fighters throughout her UFC career, whereas Penne is still somewhat lanky, but it's also hard to see Penne in her current form pressing the issue enough to send things south for Reed in any sort of consistent fashion. The pick is Reed via decision.

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