Anya Taylor-Joy vs Cardi B
(Writing: LMW / Results: Lookout!)
Anya Taylor-Joy
(25, 5’7, 7-1 FCBA, League of Mighty Women)
Cardi B
(28, 5’3, 3-3 FCBA, Free Agent)
Pre-Fight: League of Mighty Women’s Anya Taylor-Joy will be looking to continue her winning streak as the faces off against Cardi B, who is currently a free agent after a short stint with Global Boxing Syndicate. Anya is coming off from a hard-fought victory over Sasha Pieterse and she will be looking for another win to continue her climb through the rankings. Cardi on the other hand will be looking to recover from a loss in her last fight, which could have given her another contract with the GBS.
Anya addresses the audience first during the pre-fight press conference. “Things are going well, I’m two for two with my new stable and I want to keep it up. My fight against Sasha also prepared me well for this matchup as I think they have similar styles. Cardi’s style could be a bit more aggressive, but I should be able to handle it with my reach and technical advantage.”
Cardi doesn’t seem to be in as good of a mood as Anya, when it is her turn to make her statement. “Look, I had an off night last time I was in the ring, but I’ll make a statement with this fight. GBS will regret not signing me and this skinny bytch will regret challenging me. She thinks she can handle my power, but she simply can’t. And guess what, I knocked out taller bytches before, so don’t count on that.”
Anya looks a bit frustrated as she says “I’m starting to get tired of hearing my opponents confusing fit with skinny and with them thinking they can just run their mouths as I tend to keep things civil.”
Cardi goes “What are you going to do about it girl, huh? Do you wanna go at it now?” and with that she stands up, but Anya stays seated and just stares coldly at her opponent. Not getting an answer, Cardi continues “No? Didn’t think so!” The organizers decide that it would be a good time to end the press conference before things could get escalated, so both fighters are escorted backstage without any further issue.
It is now time for the fight night! Anya enters the arena first with her coach Summer Glau besides her and she waves at the crowd as they cheer for her during her walk down the aisle. After entering the ring, she goes over to her corner and stars shadowboxing to warm up.
She is wearing a baby blue sports bra, matching trunks, gloves and shoes, while her hair is in a ponytail.
Cardi comes out next to her own song with her coach besides her. She pumps her fists as the crowd cheers and sings along. Cardi gives them another reason to cheer as she twerks while she goes through the ropes. She looks pumped up and ready to go.
She is wearing a yellow bikini top and matching trunks with black gloves and shoes, while her hair is in a high ponytail.
Fighters come to the center of the ring to listen to the referee’s instructions and then they touch gloves with Cardi being a bit pushy with it. However, they go back to their corners without further escalation and we are now waiting for the bell for 10 rounds of bantamweight action.
Fight: Round 1: As expected, Cardi starts with a more aggressive approach as she rushes to her opponent right after the bell rings, while Anya looks more controlled. Anya’s reach advantage comes into play right away as she stops Cardi with a double jab before she could get close enough to engage. While that doesn’t stop Cardi from coming forward, a jab-straight combo stops her on her tracks once again. Anya’s reach advantage combined with her quick footwork seems to be causing too much problem for Cardi early on as she continuously tries to close the distance without any success as she gets hit with either double jabs or one-two combos.
In the second half of the round, Cardi’s pace has slowed down and Anya seems to be the one to initiate exchanges from long range to favor her reach advantage. Cardi is still having difficulty defending, but at least these longer exchanges give her a chance to land some punches of her own. Anya ends up clearly outpunching her opponent in this round and wins it wide. Cardi needs to make some changes to her tactic or it will be a short fight.
Round 2: Anya keeps landing jabs and straights early in this round as well, but Cardi starts to change her approach as she now tries to cut angles and duck under the jabs to make her way inside instead of just trying to barrel through like she tried to do in the first. Once she is inside, it is Anya’s time to have trouble defending against her opponent’s attack as Cardi starts to do damage with some power shots to the body. Anya sees stepping back is the only way out of it, but Cardi also gives her a parting gift in the form of an uppercut to the chin, which doesn’t connect clearly but still causes some damage.
Rest of the round sees Anya defending on the back foot and landing some counter punches, but Cardi does most of the work as she keeps cutting angles to get inside and lands some good body shots before her opponent can step away. It is a big round for Cardi to turn things around after a bad start and to tie things up on the scorecard.
Round 3: That previous round gives the already self-confident Cardi even more confidence as she rushes towards her opponent as soon as the bell rings, which surprises Anya and forces her to go with a defensive stance. At this point, Anya’s defensive jabs also lose their deterrent effect as Cardi bobs and weaves through them to get inside and start hammering her opponent’s body with hooks and uppercuts.
To make things worse in this round, Cardi starts to grab and put her into clinches to deliver some additional punishment, when Anya tries to step away from these inside exchanges. When they are in a clinch, Cardi especially works Anya’s ribs that went through a similar punishment last month. Her abs and ribs start to get reddened as Cardi continuously targets them for the remainder of the round.
It is another big round for Cardi and her confidence seems to be sky-high as she twerks at her corner before sitting down to her stool. On the other corner, Summer discusses alternative tactics with Anya as her height advantage has turned into a disadvantage as she fails to find an answer to Cardi’s attacks during inside exchanges.
Round 4: Once again, Cardi makes an aggressive start and doesn’t give anytime for Anya to make her adjustments. On the inside, she sticks with the plan as she starts battering her opponent’s midsection. However, it turns out that Anya actually made some changes to her tactics as she now uses shovel hooks to the body to fight back, which seems to be working better for her to adjust to the height difference in these up close exchanges. This new and unexpected resistance drives Cardi back for the first time since the first round.
Another adjustment that Anya makes in this round is that she is ducking more when throwing jabs almost as if she is going for body punches, but it is to stop Cardi’s bob and weave approaches. However, towards the end of the round, Cardi times it right to hit a big uppercut as Anya was ducking, which rocks her. She tightens her guard up close immediately, but it opens her body for another attack, which Cardi makes gladly. Anya fights back once again though and she drives her opponent back without getting into too much trouble.
While it was a closer round, that last exchange brings it on Cardi’s side once again. Still, it was a good recovery from Anya as she seems to be getting back into this match. Both Anya and Summer know that there is still more work to be done, so Summer keeps giving instructions to Anya during the break.
Round 5: Cardi is still the one to initiate the action in this round, but she is not as aggressive as before after seeing Anya’s improvements to her tactic in the last round. It is for good reason too, because the second time she tries to get inside as she ducks under a jab, Anya hits her with an uppercut. Fortunately for Cardi, it is only a glancing blow, but it is still enough to halt her advance. However, she neither steps back nor continues forward for a moment there and it is all Anya needed to get back to rhythm with a double jab-straight combo. That finally urges Cardi to take a step back and start defending herself, but now we are back to the start of this match as Anya fires up one-two combos from range, disengages and repeats.
The momentum of this match completely shifted once again and as we are getting to the end of this round, Cardi starts to look a bit punch-drunk, so after eating another jab-straight combo, she clinches with her opponent and starts driving her back towards the ropes. Cardi puts together a short attack of her own before the bell rings, but it was meant to help her survive the round anyway, which she does. However, Anya pulls closer on the scorecard with a big win in this round and she seems to be back in control.
Round 6: Cardi’s confidence and swagger seem to be deflated as she starts the round with a defensive approach for the first time in this match. Anya on the other hand might be still feeling the damage done to her abs and ribs, but she seems to have found her groove. She starts staying longer in range to land longer combinations and changing levels to keep her opponent guessing. Cardi is getting more and more sluggish as the round continues.
Entering the last minute of the round, things aren’t looking good for Cardi as her wild swings go wide, while Anya methodically continues landing combinations. Cardi looks dazed and she tries to clinch with Anya again to weather the storm, but Anya is ready for it this time and takes a step back, which causes Cardi to stumble. Anya takes full advantage of the situation as she lands a right and a left hook and follows it up with a big uppercut to the chin that drops Cardi on her famed ass! 1…2…3… Cardi sits there with a blank look 4…5… her expression changes rapidly and with an angry look, she tries to get back on her feet 6…7…8… turns out to be a bad decision as she wobbles and falls towards the ropes 9…10 she tries to use the ropes to climb back up, but to no avail as the count passes her by and the bell rings one last time to signal the end of the match!
Official Result: Winner via KO in round 6, Anya Taylor-Joy!
Post-Fight: Anya celebrates her victory over at her corner and Summer gets into the ring to hug and congratulate her fighter. On the other side, medical staff and her coach help Cardi to get back to her stool and calm her down. Looks like she hasn’t taken to loss well, but she seems to be fine otherwise as the doctor gives the thumbs up after checking her. Anya watches it from a distance and after she is satisfied that her opponent is fine, she goes back to the center of the ring to get her hand raised by the referee.
Anya once again makes her post-match remarks in the ring with an ice pack applied to her ribs. “Another comeback victory and another ice pack treatment for me. Sharon (Horgan) is really putting my ribs to the test with these matchups that she sets for me, but they are still holding up, so I suppose I pass the test. *chuckles* Now, I’ll be honest. Cardi is a tough fighter, but I’m glad that I was able to put her down and I hope that she learned the difference between skinny and fit tonight.” With that, she smiles and waves to the fans before exiting the ring.
This was another hard-fought victory for Anya Taylor-Joy as she is starting to build a nice winning streak and record. A different kind of streak is happening for Cardi B as she has now lost back-to-back fights, which puts her at a losing record. |
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