STRIKEFORCE: ‘CYBORG’ DESTROYS CARANO

Written by Jim Murphy   |   Saturday, August 15 2009

Cris 'Cyborg' Santos overwhelmed Gina Carano with her strength and punching power to earn a 1st round knockout victory in their historic Strikeforce main event fight.

Gina Carano put women’s MMA on the map, but Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos may have become the sport’s first dominant female champion by virtue of her overwhelming TKO victory in the main event of Saturday’s STRIKEFORCE event.  ‘Cyborg’ simply was too physically strong and her punches too powerful for Carano, who fought valiantly before succumbing to a barrage of ‘ground and pound’ punches at the end of the first round.

Before a near capacity crowd at San Jose’s HP Pavilion, Carano and ‘Cyborg’ made history as the first women to headline a major US mixed martial arts event.  ‘Cyborg’ entered the cage first to a mostly negative reaction, stopping along the way to shadow box and throw kicks on the entrance ramp.  The crowd went nuts for Carano, who was accompanied into the arena by Randy Couture who trained her for the matchup. 

Despite the fight being scheduled for five rounds of five minutes each, the women set a frantic pace from the opening horn.  ‘Cyborg’s size and strength advantage was apparent from the outset, as she landed an immediate flurry of punches before taking Carano to the canvas.  Carano landed in top position, but quickly found herself in trouble as ‘Cyborg’ worked for a kneebar and then a heel hook.  
Carano was able to extricate herself, and get to her feet but ‘Cyborg’ took her back and immediately took her down again.  Carano landed in top mount, however, and was able to score with some big punches from the top.  Inexplicably, she backed off and let ‘Cyborg’ get to her feet instead of pressing what may have been her best opportunity to win the fight.

Carano was able to land a couple of effective jabs on the ensuing standup exchange, but ‘Cyborg’ caught a body kick attempt and quickly closed the distance again.  ‘Cyborg’ once again took her opponent to the mat and after an unsuccessful armbar attempt mounted Carano and began a brutal punching assault that eventually forced the stoppage at 4:59 of the first round.

Despite ‘Cyborg’s’ triumph the most dominating performance of the evening belonged to former DREAM middleweight champion Gegard Mousasi.  In his first fight at 205, Mousasi destroyed STRIKEFORCE light heavyweight champion Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral via TKO at the 1:00 mark of the first round.  Mousasi’s victory wasn’t a shocking outcome, but the utter ease with which he handled a tough, experienced and well rounded opponent in Sobral was stunning and evoked comparisons to recently signed heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko.  Making Mousasi’s triumph all the more incredible is that at 24 years of age he’s only going to get better.

Earlier in a card full of decisive finishes, Gilbert Melendez became STRIKEFORCE interim lightweight champion with a third round TKO victory over the double tough Mitsuhiro Ishida.  Though Melendez dominated the fight, Ishida gained the respect of fans with his toughness and heart.  Melendez will now face Josh Thompson to unify the belts once Thompson is medically cleared to resume fighting.

In the opening bout of the evening, Fabrico Werdum earned an easy tapout victory over Mike Kyle.  Werdum was in control throughout before ending the contest with a tight guillotine choke in the first round.  Werdum has been mentioned as a possible opponent for Fedor Emelianenko’s debut in the promotion which is scheduled to take place this October.

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