In her second UFC fight, Cris Cyborg returns to the Octagon on Saturday looking to extend her winning streak to six as she takes on UFC newcomer Lina Lansberg.
UFC is seemingly creating a new division to accommodate Cyborg’s size. The promotion has two women’s divisions—strawweight (115 pounds) and bantamweight (135 pounds)—yet Cyborg has been given two catchweight matches at 140 pounds.
As a result of Cyborg being bigger and outside the weight class of UFC’s biggest female division, Lansberg is being served up as a sacrificial lamb after just seven career fights in smaller promotions.
Anything can happen in a fight, but Cyborg is being put in the mixed martial arts equivalent of a WWE squash match for her home country in Brazil.
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The lead-up to Cyborg vs. Lansberg has been unusual because Lansberg is being given almost no chance to win.
Per Odds Shark, Cyborg is a 2-25 favorite to defeat Lansberg. ESPN’s Reed Kuhn recently wrote about the biggest upsets by odds in UFC history, with T.J. Dillashaw’s win over Renan Barao at UFC 173 when he was given +710 odds.
Going back to Odds Shark, Lansberg currently has +700 (bet $100 to win $700) odds against Cyborg. It would nearly equal the biggest upset by odds in UFC history.
Another reason for the unusual lead into the match is because of Cyborg’s weight cut. On Tuesday, she told Damon Martin of Fox Sports her weight was still at 160 pounds. Weigh-ins for the event take place on Friday, giving her three days to cut 20 pounds.
On top of that, per A.J. Perez, Steven Marrocco and Mike Bohn of USA Today, Cyborg’s diet coach George Lockhart said in a video posted on her YouTube channel that he put her on birth control to help cut weight:
Cris kind of had an issue with the birth control I put her on. Some of the problems she was wondering about was it making her lose muscle, lose strength, maybe lose some of her aggressiveness. One of the issues she faced last camp was that she had strong periods, so I wanted to put her on birth control.
Per Mike Bohn of Rolling Stone, Cyborg typically walks around at 170 pounds when she is not preparing for a fight.
Weight cuts in mixed martial arts are never fun, but this is a 30-pound drop for Cyborg. She continues to add muscle mass as she gets older, which is only going to make it that much more difficult to make weight the longer she fights.
There comes a point when dropping too much weight, especially in such a short amount of time, is dangerous for your health. Cyborg is only 31 years old and has not shown signs of slowing down, so expecting anything other than a quick knockout victory would be foolish.
Lansberg doesn’t have a long MMA track record, though she explained to Ben Fowlkes of MMAJunkie.com her career record isn’t indicative of how much experience she has.
I have more than 80 fights in Thai boxing. I have been there before. I fought Valentina Shevchenko in the world championship final many years ago. That was exactly what happened, just like this. I’ve been there before, and I think the experience is what’s going to make the difference.
It’s interesting that Lansberg highlights the fight against Shevchenko, because Fowlkes noted she lost that match.
Lansberg understands why UFC wanted her to fight at 140 pounds and has the right mindset going into a fight with Cyborg. She told Fowlkes that she has nothing to lose, which is 100 percent accurate.
UFC gains nothing if Lansberg beats Cyborg. If Cyborg eventually gets a match with Ronda Rousey—based on Cyborg’s unwillingness/inability to go down to 135 pounds, don’t count on it happening anytime soon—it depends entirely on her aura as an unstoppable monster.
A win by Lansberg, or even taking the fight into the later rounds, makes her instantly credible and will presumably earn at least one more match on a UFC card.
It’s just unfair and unrealistic to expect, because Cyborg is as indestructible as any fighter in mixed martial arts right now. She hasn’t had a fight go past the first round since 2013, with three of her previous four fights all ending in 81 seconds or less.
Prediction: Cyborg wins via first-round KO
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