| Taila Santos is a kickboxing stylist sporting a 15-0 record. Except for maybe 2 of her opponents, Santos has been destroying the absolute bottom of the barrel opponents. Her last opponent before her appearance on Conteder Series was a 0-1 fighter who would go on to 0-9 in the next couple years. Mara Borella is a well-rounded boxer/grappler that looks to have made huge improvements since training at ATT. She made her American debut against Dudieva in Invicta just a year and a half ago, and since then has earned an impressive submission win against the strong Kalinda Faria and dropped a competitive striking contest against Katlyn Chookagian. Despite her UFC experience, she is the underdog in this matchup. This somewhat makes sense as Mara will be flying into enemy territory to fight an undefeated fighter who looked to have impressive striking in her DWCS fight, whereas Mara spent 3 rounds with Chookagian mostly abusing the air in her last fight. Taila's kickboxing does look good, but this isn't a kickboxing match. She looks technical when she's in her preferred range, but when Almeida rushed at her, all she did was retreat back to the cage. If Taila can't stop girls from coming at her with strikes, or angle off to avoid the cage, then it's a trivial matter for grapplers to get their hands on her. At that point it'll be about strength in the clinch and Borella seems pretty strong muscling down supposed judo black belts like Dudieva. In open mat scenarios, Talia also let Almeida get deep into TD shots standing very upright. I don't think her TDD looked great at all, moreso Almeida TD looked like garbage not driving through whatsoever. If Borella gets that deep and just throws a leg around for a trip, I expect Taila to go down pretty easy. If you look at Almeida's record, she also is a huge can crusher without one win over a decent opponent (every girl she beat with a winning record are on losing skids). Almeida is several levels below the likes of Chookagian and Kalinda Faria imo, and she's one of the best wins on Talia's record. We don't know much about Taila's grappling except that she's listed as a BJJ blue belt. Borella is the same, but her mma grappling appears to be good enough to submit Faria who is supposedly a brown belt. I think with the information gaps it's either dog or pass. Even if we assume Santos's skills translate to the higher level, she only comfortably won a decision against a very bad DWCS opponent. The only other reasonably skilled opponent she fought was Gisele Moreira, and that went to decision as well. If she does win, I'm guessing it will almost surely be by a somewhat close decision. On the other end, if Santos is really not ready for this level, then I can see Mara winning by sub or by a dominant grappling decision. At around +160, it's hard not to take a shot on Borella. |
...but don't forget Moraes got ROBBED