In just over a month’s time, one of the very best fights in the history of women’s mixed martial arts will take place, as featherweight champion Cris Cyborg is set to defend her 145-pound strap against ex-bantamweight titleholder Holly Holm in the main event of UFC 219 on Dec 30 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ahead […]
In just over a month’s time, one of the very best fights in the history of women’s mixed martial arts will take place, as featherweight champion Cris Cyborg is set to defend her 145-pound strap against ex-bantamweight titleholder Holly Holm in the main event of UFC 219 on Dec 30 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ahead of the highly anticipated fight, Cyborg recently claimed to have inside information on Holm’s training camp:
“Believe it or not, I’ve actually had a few Brazilians who have trained in New Mexico share things with me about her training,” Cyborg told FanSided.
Despite that statement, however, Cyborg isn’t planning to use the information. The Brazilian slugger instead said that she’s expecting the best version of “The Preacher’s Daughter” and that her team has planned exactly for that:
“While I appreciate them wanting to see me succeed and continue to represent Brazil as a champion, I haven’t really let what they’ve said influence my training,” Cyborg said. “At the end of the day, I don’t care what type of training she is doing for her confidence, wrestling or boxing, my team is preparing me for the best version of Holly Holm.”
“Holly is a unique fighter. However, she has done a lot of rounds of boxing, and even in MMA she has more career fight time than I do,” she continued. “My team has been able to view a lot of fight footage of her and brought in specific fighters who can replicate how she strikes and the sequences she likes to do with her offense.”
Who do you expect to come out on top when Cyborg and Holm meet?
Fight fans are getting a late Christmas present from the UFC as they will get to watch a fight that they have been dreaming about for a few years now as Cris Cyborg will fight one of the best 135-pound women on the planet. The UFC has already announced that Cyborg will put her women’s […]
Fight fans are getting a late Christmas present from the UFC as they will get to watch a fight that they have been dreaming about for a few years now as Cris Cyborg will fight one of the best 135-pound women on the planet.
The UFC has already announced that Cyborg will put her women’s 145-pound title against former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC 219.
Make no mistake about it, Holm is the most accomplished fighter Cyborg will have ever faced. However, that fact didn’t play a factor in the betting odds for the bout as Cyborg is already a heavy betting favorite over Holm.
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate recently appeared on MMA Tonight on SiriusXM Rush, and during the interview, she believes that Holm is the fighter best suited to taking out the seemingly unstoppable Cyborg.
“Of anybody that I can think to fight Cyborg to right now, that has the best chance, I honestly, truly believe that it is Holly,” said Tate (transcript courtesy of MMA Fighting).
“The reason I say that is, if Cyborg can’t get ahold of Holly, if she recklessly chases her down – similar to how Ronda did, not using the correct angles – if she follows her like a missile – which she does in every fight I’ve ever seen before, that’s how she hunts girls down because she can – with holly, that’s not a good idea.
She can cut through those angles. She’s an amazing counter striker and if she lands that head kick, I think she can put anybody away. So stylistically, this makes for a really, really interesting fight.”
Just two years ago, Holm was set to face Ronda Rousey for the title, and she pulled off the upset by defying the odds to knock out Rousey. Then she went on a rough patch as she submitted by Tate in her next bout before losing back to back decisions including one for the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight title.
Now, Holm is back on track as she has knocked out Bethe Correia in June. Despite the negative road that Holm has traveled, Tate thinks that that’s about to change as Holm may be able to give Cyborg a serious run for her money.
“If Cyborg gets ahold of her and throws her down to the ground, obviously Holly’s in trouble. She’s in big trouble. But I can truly attest to how amazing Holly’s footwork is and just how difficult she is to get ahold of, how hard it is to do that. You really have to throw everything to the wayside just to try to grab her.
I think I got two takedowns on her in our five rounds and I’m smaller. I think I’m a little speedier than Cyborg is even. Cyborg’s really, really strong but she’s not necessarily the fastest woman in the world. She doesn’t tend to shoot a lot out in the open so I think to press Holly against the cage or to overwhelm Holly is going to be a difficult task, I really do.”
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate claims that the woman she beat to win her first title in the promotion stands the best chance of toppling arguably the best female mixed martial artist of all time Tate told listeners on MMA To…
Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate claims that the woman she beat to win her first title in the promotion stands the best chance of toppling arguably the best female mixed martial artist of all time Tate told listeners on MMA Tonight on SiriusXM Rush, that she believes Holly Holm is the has a style […]
Ahead of their scheduled UFC 219 (Dec. 30, 2017) featherweight title fight, Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm have begun to go back-and-forth a bit on social media. Last month, Cyborg began accusing Holm of using performance-enhancing-drugs (PEDs), and “The Preacher’s Daughter” responded on her official Instagram account: “I just know I compete clean and they […]
Ahead of their scheduled UFC 219 (Dec. 30, 2017) featherweight title fight, Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm have begun to go back-and-forth a bit on social media.
Last month, Cyborg began accusing Holm of using performance-enhancing-drugs (PEDs), and “The Preacher’s Daughter” responded on her official Instagram account:
“I just know I compete clean and they test me all the time,” Holm said in the video. “So, I just never needed applause for passing my tests.”
Earlier this week, the usually reserved Holm explained why she felt the need to respond to the Brazilian champion on an edition of The MMA Hour:
“I didn’t want my name to be associated with any kind of performance-enhancing drugs,” Holm said. “Because I’ve never used, ever. Not in any sport I’ve ever done in my life, not in anything I’ve ever done.”
“Just because I don’t put it on my social media every time come to my house or come to my gym, doesn’t mean being tested,” Cyborg said. “It’s never an issue, they come and say they’re taking a drug test and I go, okay, so I do. It’s not like I plaster it out there saying ‘look I got tested today’ and let everybody know. It’s not really my style.”
Continuing on, Holm said that Cyborg, who has dealt with PED issues in the past, needs to stop ‘whining’:
“It had nothing to do with pumping a fight, nothing to do with trying to even talk trash about a fight, that’s stuff’s normal,” Holm said. “But to be acting like, I’m not getting tested or whatever. I was the most tested last year, and even this year, I’m still tested more than she is, so I told her just to stop whining.”
What do you make of Cyborg’s claims and who do you expect to come out on top Dec. 30?
Cris Cyborg feels she’ll have defeated two opponents if she successfully defends her title at UFC 219. Cyborg is set to put her women’s featherweight championship on the line against Holly Holm on Dec. 30 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas,…
Cris Cyborg feels she’ll have defeated two opponents if she successfully defends her title at UFC 219. Cyborg is set to put her women’s featherweight championship on the line against Holly Holm on Dec. 30 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’ll be Holm’s first title bout since defending the 135-pound gold against Miesha […]
On a brisk May night twelve years ago, Cristiane Santos walked to a ring in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil. It was her first professional fight. She lost by submission, tapping out to a kneebar in just under two minutes.
Mixed martial arts is f…
On a brisk May night twelve years ago, Cristiane Santos walked to a ring in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil. It was her first professional fight. She lost by submission, tapping out to a kneebar in just under two minutes.
Mixed martial arts is full of stories like this. People fight once or twice and lose and decide it’s not for them, and then they walk away and pursue some other, more normal career. Santos’ story could’ve ended that night at Show Fight 2.
Instead, she returned later that year and won her second fight. And her third. It has been twelve years, and she still hasn’t lost another fight. And truthfully, it has been a long time since anybody even entertained the notion that she might lose again.
When was the last time you seriously gave a Cyborg opponent a real shot at winning? For me, it was probably the fight against Gina Carano in 2009. Cyborg was mostly unknown at that point and Carano, forever the apple of all our eyes, was a heavy fan favorite. Cyborg thrashed her so badly that Carano never returned to mixed martial arts, opting to pursue other, less-violent career paths.
I vaguely remember thinking MarloesCoenen had a chance of winning, at least the first time she faced Cyborg, but that pretty much went the same way the Carano fight did, with the only real difference being the greater extent of the beating.
Cyborg fights have become something of a routine. We always know what’s going to happen, and we know it’s going to be physical and violent and ugly and uncomfortable to watch.
She is dominant in a more visceral way than other dominant champions like Georges St-Pierre or Demetrious Johnson. Those men are supremely skilled and entertaining; watching them is a pleasure. Watching Cyborg is like watching a tornado carving through a small Midwestern town. We know what’s coming. We’ve seen it before. We still can’t turn away.
UFC 219 will be different. For the first time in forever and a day, Cyborg is facing an opponent who has a legitimate chance of not just lasting to the final bell.
Holly Holm, the former world champion boxer, vaulted to stardom two years ago with her brutal knockout of Ronda Rousey to capture the UFC bantamweight title. Much like Cyborg did in sending Carano packing, Holm essentially ended Rousey‘s career that night in Australia. Rousey didn’t retire after that loss, but when she returned a year later to face Amanda Nunes, she was a shadow of a shell of her former self. The raging fire long present in her eyes was gone. Holm had extinguished it, just as Cyborg rattled Carano to her core.
Holm will step into the Octagon to vie for Cyborg’s featherweight championship. It is a belt and a division essentially created as a way to keep Cyborg in the UFC and headlining pay-per-view events. The event-buying public seems perfectly content, at least for now, to watch Cyborg mow through hapless competition just as she did in the years leading up to her big turn in the UFC.
But Holm is no patsy.
There is a case to be made that this is the best fight in the history of women’s mixed martial arts. It won’t be the biggest financial success; Rousey is still the queen of that department even in the midst of her quasi-retirement from the sport.
But from a quality, skill and technical perspective, there is no better match-up to be made at this point in time. Holm has been underwhelming since the night she beat Rousey, but she is still far and away the best counterpart for Cyborg, and will easily be the biggest win of Cyborg’s career should she prevail.
The same goes for Holm. Critics will point at the Rousey knockout as the high point for Holm‘s MMA tenure. But in truth, Holm was always more than a tough out for Rousey; Holm had an overwhelming striking advantage that we all overlooked because we were blinded by Rousey‘s stunning pad-hitting and shadowboxing. In reality, Rousey was and is an atrocious and deficient striker who may have been misled by her coach to believe she was far better than she actually was.
If Holm is able to beat Cyborg, especially in the same manner she beat Rousey, it will be a far greater accomplishment than her win over Rousey. Beating Cyborg means you must be a better striker, but even more it means you must endure. Cyborg’s initial onslaught overwhelms opponents like a dense morning fog, wrapping them on all sides; Holm will need to continually look for the light on the other side.
But she can do it. She can endure, and she can beat Cyborg. She has a legitimate chance of beating the most terrifying woman on the planet. And of course, Cyborg has a chance of turning Holm into nothing more than another line entry on a long list of overwhelmed opponents.
There is so much we can find out about both women and their skills and spirit. We’ll find out if Holm was a one-shot wonder, or if she truly is the breathtaking prospect many of us thought she’d be when she transitioned from boxing to mixed martial arts.
And we’ll find out if Cyborg is indeed capable of being challenged, or if she’s just a fighter so advanced that it seems like she’s in the wrong decade, or perhaps the wrong millennium.
On a brisk May night twelve years ago,