Aspen Ladd wins in 145 lb debut, wins in PFL debut, defeats Julia Budd at PFL 10

The Professional Fighters League returns to us tonight, November 25, 2022, for PFL 10: The Richest Night in Mixed Martial Arts.

Headlining the event is a women’s lightweight championship trilogy showcasing two-time PFL champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison (15-0), who faced Laressa Pacheco (18-4) in the main event of the evening.

Co-headlining is a featherweight championship bout between Brendan Loughnane (25-4) and Bubba Jenkins (19-5).

In the middle of our main card tonight came a non-title bout between former Bellator women’s featherweight champion Julia Budd (16-4) and UFC veteran Aspen Ladd (9-3).

As mentioned above, Budd is a world champion at 145 lbs, though she came into tonight’s bout with a PFL record of 1-1. Ladd on the other hand was debuting tonight both in the featherweight division, as well as the PFL, this being her first fight in a new weight class as well as a new promotion.

Continue reading to see how this featherweight contest went down:

Official Result: Aspen Ladd def. Julia Budd via split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

Budd takes the center of the octagon and aims to get her jab going early on. She throws a snap kick up the middle that’s caught by Ladd, who takes her down with it after tripping Budd’s other leg.

Budd rolls with the takedown and ends up on top for a moment with a headlock, but Ladd had both hooks in on her back and once she cleared the head she dominated the rest of the round with her grappling and ground and pound.

Round two is much closer, as Budd is able to stuff Ladd’s takedown attempts, though she was pinned to the side of the cage throughout. She does land some nice knees in the clinch, and with the way PFL judges have scored fights in the past, it may be 19-19 going into the final five minutes.

Though she was still unable to secure any takedowns, Ladd pressed the action in the third and overall out-struck Budd 92-80 in total strikes.

Aspen Ladd snaps her two-fight losing skid tonight with this victory over Julia Budd at PFL 10, improving her record to 10-3 in the process.

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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