Cris Cyborg is a legitimate draw in MMA. She proved that at UFC 198 and, while the company has done everything in its power to pit fans against her, the UFC has never been above grabbing some easy money, and the bucks are beaucoup with the Invicta FC featherweight champ.
With a Fight Night lined up in Cyborg’s native Brazil, the company decided it would go to the well once again. It put together a minimalist card, featuring little in the way of names and ranked contenders, and offered fans just one simple thing; the sanctioned execution of some poor, anonymous woman at the hands of one of MMA’s best.
That may sound a bit strong, but Cyborg has established herself as an absolute force of nature at this point. She is undefeated since 2005, with all but two of her 16 wins ending via brutal knockout. The sole blemish on her record since then was a no contest due to a failed drug test in 2011. Nobody has been able to slow down her blistering offense, never mind stop her.
Lina Lansberg, the poor, poor woman locked into a cage with Cyborg, didn’t seem to possess any tools that would allow her to avoid that same fate. While she entered the cage with a respectable 6-1 record, she didn’t demonstrate remarkable technical prowess in any area of the cage. She didn’t have a remarkable degree of athleticism that would allow her to outwork the Brazilian, either.
All signs pointed to this being another emphatic Cyborg win.
The first round was a fairly standard affair for Cyborg, with the sole oddity being that Lansberg managed to survive to the horn. Cyborg muscled Lansberg to the cage repeatedly, landing knees and occasional flurries before completing an impressive power double-leg takedown and landing some heavy ground-and-pound. Lansberg managed to tangle her up enough to avoid punishment.
That changed in the second round, though.
In the opening seconds, Cyborg clobbered Lansberg with a brutal right hand down the pipe that smashed her nose to pieces. Lansberg did little more than turtle from there, and Cyborg teed off. Combinations led to bigger combinations, which led to another takedown. Lansberg could do little more than cover up, and that wasn’t enough to keep the referee’s enthusiasm. The ending, officially, came at 2:29 of Round 2.
With yet another dominant win over yet another middling name, Cyborg once again finds herself with few compelling realistic options. The UFC, inexplicably, refuses to let her compete at her preferred weight class of 145 pounds and refuses to give any compelling challengers incentive to move up to face her.
In an ideal world, the UFC would pony up enough cash to lure in someone that is spinning their wheels at the moment like Cat Zingano or Raquel Pennington for an interesting one-off fight. In an ideal world, there would be at least some serious discussion about putting together the long-awaited superfight between Cyborg and Ronda Rousey.
Alas, the UFC has proven itself to be a company willing to pinch a penny until Abe Lincoln cries, and it has shown itself to be willing to sacrifice fans’ enjoyment in order to keep its pockets full.
As such, we can expect Cyborg to stay where she is right now. Fighting at a cruelly low weight class against regional enhancement talent.
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