Cris Cyborg: Abandoning the Ghost Ship of Women's Featherweight

Cristiane 'Cyborg' Justino is finally coming to the UFC tomorrow night and it's hard to know how to feel. Many point out that this fight is the exception to the brilliant, competitive matchmaking that makes the rest of the UFC 198 card so special. Cyborg, the woman some believe to be the best female fighter in the world, is matched against 8-6-1 Leslie Smith. The UFC, as always, are claiming that the mismatch results from everyone else being scared of Justino.

The most intriguing question is how Justino will cope at the new weight of 140lbs, five pounds lower than her usual fighting weight, en route to the 135lbs of the UFC's upper women's division. The question on the mind of those in the know is why Leslie Smith is being overlooked so completely—she might well get crushed but even with her so-so record she is considerably more accomplished than the vast majority of Justino's competition.

It had been a while since I watched a Justino fight as it aired. I can just about recall the clumsy brawl between her and Carano, and had seen gifs or videos of the knockouts in her recent bouts, but actually sitting down and watching her recent fights I was somewhat surprised by her growth as a fighter. Dana White famously slighted Justino as looking like "Wanderlei Silva in a dress" but that secondary school level insult actually applied well to her style of fighting. Just as Silva was not in the business of set ups or counters, but in windmilling and overwhelming his opponents, Justino overwhelmed the much crisper Gina Carano in a sloppy brawl and ran straight over the many undersized women Strikeforce asked to come up to 145lbs to fight her.

In recent bouts though Cyborg has shown an evolution in her abilities. For a start the jab she throws out before windmilling her right actually does something now—it was this jab which snapped back the head of Charmaine Tweet last year. And her repeated use of the right to the body has done more to make the women she fights quit than her swings against their guard ever did.

She uses her elbows skilfully and paired with her use of the double collar tie and knees to the head and midsection she has become a devastating clinch fighter where before she would just swing the right hand over and over again.

But make no mistake, it is the right hand which makes her unique. The knockout power in Gina Carano's right hand—along with her astonishing good looks—were what made her a star because knockout power is rare in female divisions. But where Carano showed the odd flash of power, Cyborg is built around it. That clumsy Rocky Marciano power where if it catches you clean your night is over, but most of the time it is just going to land on your guard and still bruise you all over.

Like Jacare Souza, who we discussed yesterday, Cyborg's left is often an afterthought serving to reset her hips for another right hand. Often she'll throw the right hand and have no thought of what is coming back. Marloes Coenen—Justino's great rival at 145 and easily the best opponent Cyborg has met—showed a nice straight right in the wake of a Cyborg swing.

That second bout with Marloes Coenen showed a great many weaknesses in Cyborg, but it also showed the thoughtful side of her. There was no overwhelming Coenen when she so clearly wanted to get Cyborg into her dangerous guard. Justino spent the bout stuffing takedowns and reversing throws with her favorite ura-nage.

But when on top Cyborg would pass successfully to side control and then seemingly not know what to do from there. So she would stall for a minute trying ineffectually to get off hammerfists and elbows from the side, then stand up and invite Coenen to join her. Coenen tired of failing to take Justino down and in the fourth round was caught by one of those right hands. Cyborg mounted Coenen and spent the remainder of the round securing the TKO.

And this is what makes Justino so hard to gauge as a fighter. Have a read through the Fight Matrix rankings of women's featherweight (which are software generated) and you will see it confirmed: there is Justino, then there is Coenen who has been doing this for sixteen years, and then there is basically no one else of note left at 145. In fact most of Coenen's notable opponents are now 135ers in the UFC and if she can make the weight I would want to see her do the same. To give you a clue as to how limited the pool is at featherweight: in April of 2013 Cyborg—the number one female featherweight in the world—fought the 6-2 Fiona Muxlow who has not competed since. And in July of last year, Cyborg defended her Invicta featherweight belt against a 5-1 Faith van Duin.

Certainly the standard is generally lower in women's MMA because it is a younger sport. Until very recently it was just not a viable career choice, in fact at any weight class which is not part of the UFC it still seems not to be. So one hundred and forty five pounds is stacked with women who look too small to be there and just don't have the athleticism, technique, strength or experience that Cyborg has in spades.

You might be thinking that Leslie Smith doesn't have a chance but if Cyborg runs through Smith with ease, and doesn't end up gasping for air or looking awful at some point along the way, I am more than willing to call that a big win for Justino. Leslie Smith has been in the Octagon with talented strikers like Sarah Kaufman and Jessica Eye, both more technically crisp strikers than Cyborg often is, and has experience on at nearly the highest level of the game. If Smith can absorb the power without quitting she can put the test on Cyborg's gas tank and if not win certainly make Justino work for it. Let's not forget that for years Cyborg insisted she couldn't cut more weight, she once missed 145lbs by seven pounds. She is used to being big, having strength, and outmuscling opponents. It might be just an extra five pounds on the scale but it is always fascinating to see how shedding that extra weight and sacrificing some mass can change a fighter. The matchmaking may be inconsistent with the rest of the card, and you probably aren't buying that no one else was willing to fight Cyborg, but this is an early glimpse of Cyborg's chances at 135lbs and even if it lasts just a few seconds you might get an interesting knockout from it.