Zoila Frausto

On March 26, Zoila “Warrior Princess” Frausto (5-0) will be fighting Miesha “Takedown” Tate (8-2). Although Frausto won her last fight by armbar, the rest of her wins were by decision. Tate has three KO/TKO wins, three submission victories and two decision wins. Rumor has it that the winner of this match will be the next challenger for Sarah Kaufman’s title. Tate has already fought Kaufman and was possibly her toughest opponent to date. Although Kaufman dominated the 1st and 3rd round, Tate got a picture perfect takedown and some nice ground and pound in the 2nd round.

Although Frausto is a lot of fun to watch, her biggest strengths seem to be her explosive kicks and Superman punches. I happened to talk to a couple of fighters about their own usage of the Superman punch a long time ago, and both talked about the need to set it up properly. Pro fighter Tara LaRosa sets hers up with a jab-cross-hook-right kick combo. “I’ll do that maybe one or two times for my oponent to catch the rhythm of it and then instead of adding the kick on the last time, I’ll do jab-cross-hook and sell the kick, make them think I’m going to kick using the same combination I’ve been using and that’s when I’ll use the Superman punch,” LaRosa told me.

Miesha Tate

Pete Sell, who successfully used the Superman punch against both Nate Quarry and Josh Burkman, also advocatessetting up the punch with a good leg kick. “If you land, and hurt the guy’s leg pretty good, he’s gonna take it and that’s when you take the right hand and set him up. Even if you don’t hurt him that bad with a leg kick, just by doing the leg kick in general sets it up. As long as he didn’t check it, he’s definitely gonna feel it and then you can use a setup for that as long as it lands on the leg,” Sell said.

Frausto’s flashy leg kicks, however, are probably a bad idea against a wrestler like Tate, because it really sets up a takedown. Frausto’s Superman punches “haven’t proven to be very effective,” according to Tate, and her kicks may not be a good idea either. “I suggest she keep both feet planted on the ground but hey, I won’t complain if she doesn’t!” Tate added.

Both Burkman and LaRosa both pointed out that the punch doesn’t work if someone’s expecting it. “If you don’t set it up, you can see it coming. And if you use it repeatedly without setting it up, it’s pretty much obsolete, it’s not gonna work for you,” LaRosa said. Pete Sell echoed the sentiment. “You’re not going to keep using it. You use it once in a while. You are not going to get much effectiveness out of it unless you use it sparingly.”

If Frausto’s whole game is Superman punches and leg kicks, this kind of begs the question… how could she win this fight? Although anything can happen, Tate is coming into the fight quite confident–and rightly so. “I’ve been training specifically for her,” she pointed out. “I feel like its a bad style match up for her and she doesn’t have enough time to correct her habits and it’s going to make it that much easier for me to capitalize and win the fight!”  Tate has been training with Bill Jackson, who has a flashy style of kickboxing similar to Zoila’s. Frausto did not respond to requests for comment, but we’ll see both girls in the cage less than two weeks from today.