UFC Rio Rancho: Montana De La Rosa cruises past Mara Romero Borella

Montana De La Rosa continues her push towards title contention at 125 pounds with a convincing decision victory over Mara Romero Borella at UFC Rio Rancho.

Montana De La Rosa via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) at UFC Rio Rancho on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, live from the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Earlier on in the night, De La Rosa’s husband Mark competed in a flyweight bout against Raulian Paiva, becoming the first married couple to compete on the same UFC fight card. While husband Mark came up short, the wife felt relieved for it all to be over after coming away with the victory in her contest.

“It feels great, feels good to be over. My husband helps me out in every aspect of my fight camp and I couldn’t imagine my life without him.” De La Rosa said of her experience fighting on the same card as her husband Mark, in the post-fight interview.

Here’s how the flyweight bout unfolded.

Round 1

De La Rosa and Borella meet in the center in the beginning stages of this fight between two ranked 125 pounders. Borella landed first with an overhand right over the top, and a scramble ensues shortly thereafter with Borella looking to gain top position. The two fighters found themselves in an awkward position, Borella kind of off to the side with De La Rosa on top of Borella’s ankle ultimately preventing her from gaining full control. De La Rosa looked to reverse positions, and ultimately dragged the Italian product down for a moment before latching onto her back. With forty-five seconds remaining in the round, De La Rosa is still on her back as the stalemate ensues. Borella fires off some elbows to the thigh for good measure, and escapes from the interlock before the horn sounds at the end of the round.

Round 2

The second frame of a possible three begun with De La Rosa pressing the action early. De La Rosa scored her first takedown attempt of the round just over a minute into the stanza, and thirty seconds later she took the back of Borella. Handfighting ensued right away as De La Rosa locked in the body triangle with her legs, and works her way to having one hook in just past the midway point of the round. De La Rosa moves off the back and over into side control after failed attempts to lock up a choke, and goes back to controlling the back with the body triangle once again thereafter. A dominant round for De La Rosa ended with a few elbows from the side before the seconds tick off to end the round.

Round 3

Third and final round gets underway with Borella looking to push the pace possibly down two rounds. A technical chess match ensued for a large portion of the first half of the round, and De La Rosa landed the best combination of the round about two minutes in before dropping Borella with a left hand at the midway point. De La Rosa found herself back on the mat and in top position with Borella running out of time. Borella looked to heighten her guard as best as she could, but De La Rosa recognized it and slid into half guard effectively nullifying Borella’s efforts. Forty seconds and change to go in the fight, and De La Rosa looked to be on her way to a decision victory. The Texas product though, didn’t seem comfortable with the scorecards as she aggressively looked to pass into side control with a side choke for an attempt at a last-second squeeze. Her efforts should surely be applauded, however a finish did not materialize for her despite the solid showing tonight.

De La Rosa improved to 11-5 as a professional and is a shiny 4-1 inside UFC competition.

UFC Rio Rancho took place on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, live from the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Follow along with FanSided MMA all your live results and highlights.