UFC on FOX 19 results: Raquel Pennington takes close split decision from Bethe Correia

Raquel Pennington

TAMPA, Fla. – Raquel Pennington and Bethe Correia beat each other bloody for three full rounds, and by the end it seemed like anybody’s guess as to who got the better of it.

But when the scorecards were tallied up, two of the three judges gave it to Pennington (7-5 MMA, 4-2 UFC), who narrowly edged out Correia (9-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) by scores of 29-28, 28-29, 29-28 for the split-decision win.

The women’s bantamweight bout was part of the preliminary card of today’s UFC on FOX 19 event at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. It aired on FOX following additional prelims on UFC Fight Pass and ahead of a main card on FOX.

For Pennington, the challenge lay in getting close enough to hurt Correia without taking punishment on the way in or out. Over and over again, she led off the striking exchanges, only to get tagged by a solid counterpunch from Correia before she could get out of range.

Some of Pennington’s best moments came when she embrace a short-range fight and used her elbows from the clinch to counter Correia’s short right hands. But Correia proved just as willing to engage in that kind of in-fighting as Pennington was, while also using the threat of takedowns to keep Pennington on the defensive at times.

After two rounds of this, the fight seemed about as even as it could get. Entering the third, both fighters showed a sense of urgency, kicking up the pace of their strikes as they tried to seize the upper hand. If there was any area where Pennington found a decisive edge, it may have been her work late in the round, as she got just busy enough to make an impact on the judges in a fight that was otherwise too close to the call.

The judges rewarded her in the end, with two of the three giving Pennington the nod by the slimmest of margins after a hard-fought battle with a game opponent.

With the win, Pennington has now won two straight, with her last loss coming against former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm last February. Correia, who was undefeated until 2015, has now lost two in a row.

Up-to-the-minute UFC on FOX 19 results include:

• Raquel Pennington def. Bethe Correia via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Santiago Ponzinibbio def. Court McGee via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 4:15
• Michael Graves def. Randy Brown via submission (rear-naked choke) – Round 2, 2:31
• John Dodson def. Manny Gamburyan via TKO (strikes) – Round 1, 0:47
• Cezar Ferreira def. Oluwale Bamgbose via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-27)
• Elizeu Zaleski dos Santos def. Omari Akhmedov via TKO (knees) – Round 3, 3:03

For complete coverage of UFC on FOX 19, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

(MMAjunkie’s Matt Erickson and Steven Marrocco contributed to this report on site in Tampa.)