Carla Esparza demolished Yan Xiaonan in the UFC Vegas 27 co-main event in order to send a message that she was ready to once again challenge for the strawweight title.
With five wins in a row capped off by the TKO stoppage over Yan, Esparza had seemingly done more than enough to earn that opportunity, especially considering she holds a past win over Namajunas from their previous meeting in 2014.
On that night, Esparza submitted Namajunas to become the first ever UFC strawweight champion but despite that past win and her dominant finish on Saturday night, it still may not be enough to get a second shot at UFC gold.