After years of rumors and speculation, Cris Cyborg makes her long-awaited, much-anticipated UFC debut on Saturday at UFC 198 in Curitiba, Brazil, against Leslie Smith in a 140-pound catchweight matchup.
Cyborg has been dominating the women’s featherweight division with Invicta for the last three years, putting together a perfect 5-0 record with five knockout wins and the Invicta FC featherweight title on her mantle.
Smith is being put in a difficult position, as she has a 2-2 record in the UFC, and the organization is seemingly using her as a sacrificial lamb to elevate Cyborg. It’s asking her to move up in weight against an opponent who traditionally fights at 145 pounds.
Before Cyborg and Smith step inside the Octagon at UFC 198, here’s a look at how both fighters have arrived at this moment.
Cyborg Highlights
Cyborg is one of the most powerful strikers in mixed martial arts. She has 15 career wins, 13 of which have come by knockout or technical knockout. Her last non-(T)KO victory was against Yoko Takahashi in October 2008.
The 30-year-old is trying to do her best Ronda Rousey impression, winning three straight matches and four of her last five matches in the first round. Cyborg surely wouldn’t appreciate her accomplishments being called an impression of Rousey, but it does help illustrate the larger point.
Here’s how Cyborg took down Charmaine Tweet at Invicta FC 11 in just 46 seconds to defend her featherweight title for the first time, via the UFC:
Cyborg’s striking ability keeps her opponents at bay because they know trying to move in for an attack will lead to them absorbing heavy punches. She’s not the most accurate striker, but her ability to throw so many hard punches per minute allows her to land more than seven in every 60-second interval.
Because opponents know they can’t try to trade blows with Cyborg, she doesn’t take significant damage. She’s got a perfect takedown defense and has a good defense against significant strikes (1.55 absorbed per minute).
There even seems to be a sense of fear coming from current UFC fighters when they had the chance to fight Cyborg, as UFC President Dana White noted on Twitter:
It’s certainly more nuanced than that, as the UFC only has two weight classes in its women’s division—strawweight (115 lbs) and bantamweight (135 lbs).
That does limit Cyborg’s potential opponents significantly, but given how big of an event her debut in the UFC figures to be, the payoff would seemingly be worth it for a top-tier contender to put on a few additional pounds.
Cyborg has also earned her share of enemies—notably Rousey—after a positive test for steroids in 2012 that led to the California State Athletic Commission suspending her for one year.
Even with the previously failed drug test, that was four years ago, and Cyborg has mended enough fences to get her shot in the UFC. She is finally getting her moment on the biggest stage mixed martial arts has to offer, so it’s up to her to make it count.
Smith Highlights
Credit Smith for stepping up to take a fight against a superior opponent. The 33-year-old is essentially a journeyman fighter, owning a pedestrian 8-6-1 career record in 15 fights. She has shown some previous power with four career knockouts, but just one in four matches was under the UFC banner.
In the promotional video made by UFC for her fight on Saturday, Smith revealed Cyborg is someone she’s been watching dating back to Cyborg’s breakout victory over Gina Carano in 2009:
The bad news, as the video also makes clear, is that Smith is going to try to outpunch Cyborg. That’s not a strategy that will lead to success, especially since her ground game has been nonexistent.
When you are going against a bigger, stronger and faster striker, the best way to counter that is by taking the fight to the mat. Cyborg can’t hit hard if she is on her back fighting off submission holds.
Smith is saying all of the right things leading up to the fight, as she did to E. Spencer Kyte of the Vancouver Sun about her mindset when accepting a matchup against Cyborg:
If someone is getting into fighting because they just want to win every single time, and they never want to get tested and they never want to get pushed, I can see why they would say, ‘No’ to a Cyborg fight, but that’s not why I’m doing it.
It’s not just to be the best fighter in the world – it’s to make progress as a human being, as a martial artist, as a person with goals and a desire to evolve and change and grow and this is the perfect fight for that.
All credit to Smith for stepping up in a prime position to take a fight no one else seemed to want, but she’s overmatched in this case. She’s a pretty good striker with some power; Cyborg is the best striker in the women’s division who has no problem knocking out anyone.
Smith’s defense isn’t good, as evidenced by the high number of significant strikes she absorbs (8.46 per minute). Cyborg moves so quickly that she doesn’t need to rely on her defense often, though she’s shown a knack for protecting herself from heavy shots.
Mixed martial arts is a sport in which every fighter has a chance to win, especially someone who is capable of landing a big punch, but Smith is entering the Octagon on Saturday as Sisyphus rolling a boulder up the mountain, unable to see the peak.
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