Fight Week Special To Feature Past Carano and Cyborg Fights Leading up to the LIVE August 15 STRIKEFORCE Showdown Carano vs. Cyborg for the First STRIKEFORCE Women’s Championship.
NEW YORK (August 6, 2009) –- Mixed Martial Arts’ (MMA) leading lady, the undefeated and extremely popular Gina “Conviction” Carano will host Carano-Cyborg Week on SHO 2, a special series featuring past fights of hers and her impending opponent, Brazilian powerhouse Cris Cyborg.
The series, which is part of the nightly program SHO Sports Presents, will air on fight week, Monday, Aug. 10 – Friday, Aug. 14 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SHO 2.
The most anticipated matchup in the history of women’s MMA is also one that is undeniably the most dangerous assignment to date for the pair—universally regarded as the preeminent female fighters in the world.
Monday’s installment features a Carano triple header with replays of her thrilling victories over Julie Kedzie, Tonya Evinger and Kelly Kobald. In her fourth professional MMA fight, Carano defeated Kedzie via unanimous decision in the first MMA fight on premium television. Carano submitted Evinger in her next fight on SHOWTIME on Sept. 15, 2007 and won a unanimous decision over Kobald on CBS on Oct. 4, 2008.
Tuesday’s episode will air Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith’s second fight in which Lawler scored a second round knockout. The episode will also feature Cyborg’s knockout victory over Shayna Baszler. Both fights originally aired on CBS on July 26, 2008.
The third installment features Carano’s technical knockout of Kaitlin Young on May 31, 2008. In what was arguably the most exciting fight on the history making CBS telecast, Carano scored the TKO when the ringside doctor declared Young unable to continue after the second round. Lawler and Smith’s first fight, which ended in a no contest when Lawler accidently poked Smith in the eye, will also re air that evening.
Thursday’s episode will feature a replay of the Carano tripleheader.
The final installment, set to air just one day before the highly anticipated Carano-Cyborg battle, will feature Cyborg’s most recent fight, a third round knockout over Hitomi Akano on April 11, 2009. The episode will also feature Nick Diaz’s destructive victory over MMA legend Frank Shamrock from the same evening.
The live SHOWTIME telecast of STRIKEFORCE: “Carano vs. Cyborg” will begin at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT (tape delayed on the west coast).
Tickets for STRIKEFORCE: “Carano vs. Cyborg,” priced from $30, are on sale at the HP Pavilion box office (408-287-7070) as well as at all Ticketmaster locations (800-745-3000), Ticketmaster online (www.ticketmaster.com), and the official STRIKEFORCE website (www.strikeforce.com).
HP Pavilion doors will open for the event at 5 p.m. The first preliminary bout will begin at 5:30 p.m.
After co-promoting two events live on SHOWTIME in 2007 and 2008, STRIKEFORCE in March 2009 signed a multi-year agreement to stage live MMA events on the premium cable television network.
-Press Release