Strikeforce should not be blamed for continually referring to Gina Carano and Cristiana “Cyborg” Santos as the two top pound-for-pound female fighters during their lead up to Saturday’s fight. As a promoter they are entitled, and almost required, to speak in such grandiose terms — Gus Johnson screaming “Cyborg has tasted Gina’s power” while Carano is being pummeled is another story.
It is likely they will now promote Santos as the Fedor of women’s MMA, but the simple fact of the matter is that it is not true.
When dealing with a women’s pound-for-pound discussion, four names come to mind: Megumi Fujii, Yuka Tsuji, Tara Larosa, and Miku Matsumoto.
Remember pound-for-pound rankings are based on career accomplishments, and each of these four women have accomplished much more than Cyborg up until this point. However, with Strikeforce prepared to continually promote Cyborg and the 145-pound class, she has the perfect situation that will allow her to leap frog the rest of the field.
The promotion will continually put top level fighters in front of her, and expand her weight class. This truly will be an opportunity which has not been afforded to the other four women, or any women to date for that matter.
Currently there are very few promoters, outside of Japan, interested in promoting the 115-pound class, which houses two of the sport’s top fighters in Megumi Fujii and Yuka Tsuji. On top of that, the promotion of women in Japan is mostly left up to female only organizations like Smackgirl, Valkyrie, and Jewel. Matches are often not contested under full MMA rules, and up until this point the promoters have proven themselves to be incapable as matchmakers.
Tsuji, Fujii, and Matsumoto are all within the same weight range and have seemed like natural foils for years and yet matches cannot be made. All three fighters continually fend off lesser competition while super fights float around in the ether of “what if” scenarios. After beating Carano, Cyborg will be the center of Strikeforce’s plans for their women’s division, and therefore she will not miss out on big fights.
Tara Larosa long ruled the 135-pound women’s landscape. During her current 14-fight win streak she has defeated known commodities in the women’s game like Roxanne Modafferi, Hitomi Akano, Julie Kedzie, Amanda Buckner, Shayna Bazler, and Kelly Kobold.
However, since coming off an over a year long layoff she has been unable to land big name fights. Instead, she has scored stoppages over Alexis Davis and Sally Krumdiack. Even if Larosa signs with a big name organization like Strikeforce, she will not be the focus in same way Cyborg will soon be.
Now that Cyborg has conquered “the face of women’s MMA,” she becomes the focal point of Strikeforce’s women’s MMA push. Despite their recent acquisition of Fedor “M-1 Global” Emelianenko, their women’s division is still vital for their survival as a promotion.
As such, Strikeforce has already began stocking their 145-pound women’s division. Waiting in the wings in case of an injury this weekend was Erin Toughill, a veteran with a 10-2-1 MMA record and a 7-3-1 boxing record.
In the crowd watching at the request of the promotion was Marloes Coenen (16-3), who holds victories over Megumi Yabushita and Yoko Takahashi. Rumors are also circulating that M-1 Global client Cindy Dandois, a Belgian judoka who upset Coenen in her MMA debut.
Dave Meltzer has also reported that Strikeforce is interesting in putting on a 145-pound contender tournament.
With the number two MMA promotion in the world dedicating resources to bringing top talent and advancing Cyborg’s weight class, she has a golden chance at taking over the pound-for-pound spot. Cyborg has the talent to defeat a string of top level opposition and Strikeforce is going to give her an unprecedented opportunity.