Strikeforce conference call with Gina Carano & Cris “Cyborg” Santos

PRO MMA (promma.info) participated in a Strikeforce conference call on Thursday with Gina Carano and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos who are scheduled to face each other in the main event at “Strikeforce: Carano vs. Santos” at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif. on Aug. 15, 2009. Also on the call were Showtime’s Senior VP of Sports and Event Programming Ken Hershman, and Strikeforce Founder and CEO Scott Coker.

Carano and Santos fielded questions from the MMA media on such topics as making weight, the importance of 5-minute rounds, if the ladies had ever been approaced by the UFC, the pressure of headlining a major event fight card filled with men, their thoughts on “beauty vs. beast,” and much more.

Carano vs. Cyborg conference call:
[podcast]http://promma.info/audio/carano-cyborg-call.mp3[/podcast]

Some of the conference call highlights after the jump…

The call started out with Cyborg making a statement about the recent Youtube video where she choked out a reporter. She wanted it to be known the whole thing was a “joke” and a “scheme” to hype the fight.

Both Gina and Cyborg have both had trouble in the past making weight for their fights. When asked about her current weight, Gina would not say, however, she did state she never had trouble making 145-pounds. Cyborg would not comment on the issue.

Carano confirmed the UFC has expressed interest her, and she sat down with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta during the time when the Elite XC contracts were being bought out.

Regarding her meeting with UFC officials, Carano sated that Lorenzo seemed more open to promoting women’s MMA, whereas Dana just seemed to want to promote her. Ultimately, with Strikeforce promoting women’s MMA as a whole, she felt more inclined to sign with them and was very happy to be part of the promotion.

PRO MMA (promma.info) asked Strikeforce officials if all their female bouts will be 5-minute rounds from now on. The Sarah Kaufman vs. Shayna Baszler fight which takes place this Friday, June 19, and the Carano vs. Cyborg fight in Aug. will both be 5-minute rounds, yet they could not guarantee all their women’s bouts from now on would be 5-minute rounds because it would be up to the state athletic commission where the particular event is held.

Filed Under: Gina Carano • PRO MMA podcast • Strikeforce

Tags: audio, conference call, Cristiane Santos, Critiane Santos, cyborg, female mma, Gina Carano, Ken Hershman, Scott Coker, Showtime, Strikeforce, women's mma