Holly Holm vs. Aspen Ladd is Everything Bantamweight Division Needs

On Friday the UFC announced a women's bantamweight bout between former UFC champion Holly Holm and rising star Aspen Ladd at UFC 235

The event takes place March 2, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

First impressions are often the strongest and most meaningful. At first glance this is a solid piece of UFC matchmaking.

Whether you view this as "the new kid on the block with growing hype behind her vs. the receding former champion", or simply "grappler vs. striker", these types of booking have been well-used staples of the UFC product as long as the promotion has been in business.

Given the current state of the women's bantamweight division, any 135 pound fight scheduled has positives attached at this point. Holm vs. Ladd at UFC 235 goes a step further than that though. It is exactly what the division needs.

A win for Ladd over a notable former champion would smooth out the transition from top prospect to legitimate contender. God knows the division needs more of those right now.

If the result goes the other way and it is the hand of "the Preacher's Daughter" that's raised once the fight is over, then the UFC can -- and mostly likely will -- push Holm back into title contention herself.

That would buy the promotion a little extra time to build the next group of title challengers.

The women's bantamweight division is going through a rebuilding process following the end of Ronda Rousey's MMA career, and the introduction of the flyweight division which drew a lot of talent away from the 135 pound roster. The bout offers plenty of positives in that regard, but it's the dynamic within the cage that makes this even better.

Aspen Ladd doesn't look like a killer. Not in fighting style, or appearance. She doesn't speak like one either.

The 23-year-old's striking isn't ferocious. Her physical strength -- which continues to grow with every fight -- is not instantly visible. Sometimes, Ladd has trouble making weight, despite not being a particularly big bantamweight and competing at flyweight earlier on in her professional career.

Yet every movement she makes inside the cage is an advance on her opponent. Relentless forward motion that builds momentum as the fight goes on. Claustrophobic pressure is a constant for Ladd's opponents.

The timing of her takedowns is world class, and her stifling top game is as good as we see currently in the division. That is where the MMAGOLD fighter's best work is done.

Every strike thrown once Ladd has an opponent beneath her is vicious and precise. They are all also accompanied by a terrifying scream. Something snaps inside of the fighter once she winds up on top of her opponents. Calm is not restored until the referee waves the fight off.

The problem for Ladd against Holly Holm is that she might not be able to get to that sweet spot at all. Not only is Holm known for dancing at a distance, she fights out of a Jackson-Wink gym that has too often been accused of coaching their fighters to run from opponents in big fights.

Holm is not your typical MMA striker. Her problems have rarely come against elite grapplers.

Against fighters with limited striking ability Holm looks every bit the former world champion boxer. Ronda Rousey was embarrassingly outmaneuvered and picked apart in their 2015 title fight. When faced with other elite strikers it has been a different story.

Valentina Shevchenko, Germaine de Randamie and Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino all made Holm look not only a one dimensional fighter, but a one dimensional striker.

Repetitive and lacking in-cage creativity, Holm eats counters whenever fighters force her to lead. The same combinations are thrown on repeat, whether they are landing productively or not. And usually, they're not.

The problem for Aspen Ladd is that she can't do what has proved so effective against Holm in the past. She can't match Shevchenko's slick counter-punching, or de Randamie and Cyborg's timing and power on the feet.

And that, more than anything else, is what makes this fight so intriguing. Ladd, and her MMAGOLD fight team in El Dorado Hills, will have to figure out a new way to defeat Holly Holm at UFC 235.

If they can combine to do that, the women's bantamweight division will have a brand new title contender loaded and ready to go.