What we learned from Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg

by Zak Woods on Aug 16, 2009 11:15 AM EDT

- Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos made history as the first female MMA champion and she did it in decisive fashion. There was no question left at the end of the fight who was the better fighter. Make no mistake about it Cyborg is better than Gina Carano.

- Gina will be back. Sure, this was a tough loss but she is a talented fighter and should be able to string together some victories.

- Is Female MMA dead? I would suggest reading E. Spencer Kyte's excellent take on this but I though I would add a little more. Even if you believe that women's MMA is dependent on Gina Carano then by no means is the female sport dead. Why, because if you subscribe to this line of thinking then you likely believe that the majority of people tune in to see Gina Carano's face and assets. Will her defeat really affect these viewers? Of course not. They still want to see the beautiful girl next door kick butt. However, even this kind of analysis buys into the base human instincts about female athletes. Remember, it is not like Carano is a bad fighter she just ran into a better opponent. Carano will be back if she truly wants to be a fighter, which WKR believes she does.

- Case in point that female MMA is not dead. We are already talking about "Cyborg's" next opponent. Marloes Coenen seems like the early front runner.

- Mousasi is really, really good. Anytime you beat a top-ten fighter in a minute flat it will raise eyebrows. What makes Mousasi even more compelling is that he is only 24! Right now it seems like the sky is the limit for him. Also he could be the first fighter ever to be ranked in three weight classes in SBN/ USA Today's Consensus Rankings.

- Strikeforce struggled with timing (don't we all?). The televised card was suppose to start at 10:00pm EST but was then moved back to 10:30pm EST. The preliminary card finished too quickly and Strikeforce had 50 minutes to fill so they relegated Hieron vs. Taylor. Once the broadcast started it moved so fast that they had 75 minutes to fill and only one fight left. The four fights on the televised card only lasted twenty-one minutes and nineteen seconds. While I am sure no one could of predicted this it may have been smart for Strikeforce to try and add another undercard bout to give them some more breathing room.

- Gilbert Melendez avenged his loss to Ishida and set up a rematch with Josh Thomson (finally). Melendez looked extremely prepared and wore Ishida down on his way to a third round TKO. Melendez had lost to Ishida in 2007 so it was nice to see the growth that Melendez has undergone as a fighter since then.

- Fabricio Werdum is still a top-heavyweight. His victory over Mike Kyle set up the inevitable Fedor vs. Werdum chatter. Though it will be interesting to see if Strikeforce holds him in reserve for Fedor's second fight.

- Jay Hieron must have offended someone in his past life. First Hieron had to deal with Affliction folding. Once Jay was picked up by Strikeforce he had to deal with Nick Diaz bailing on the fight by skipping drug tests. Once the fightcard started Hieron, who was suppose to fight on the televised card was relegated to the preliminary card as Strikeforce had 50 minutes to fill before the broadcast went live. Heiron said that his sponsors pulled money due to his fight being demoted, which is just awful. Clearly Jay Hieron had some serious reserves of bad karma that needed to be cleansed from his system.

- The verdict is still out on Jesse Taylor. He took the fight on short notice, cut a lot of weight and took the fight to decision. While he lost every round the fact that he got through it and wasn't submitted is a positive.