The UFC is home to a number of amazing athletes, but few have captured fans' imaginations in any serious way. There have been exceptions over the years, of course (particularly Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey), but for the most part, MMA is thoroughly homogenized.
Shaved head, maybe cornrows. Too many tattoos. Black and white trunks.
Not many fighters stand out in the cage or on camera. Even fewer have that "it" factor that stops a building dead as soon as their music hits.
Cris "Cyborg" Justino, though, has never had any trouble getting people to pay attention.
Competitively, she long stood alone as a knockout artist in a women's MMA landscape comprised almost entirely of grapplers. Historically, she holds a special place as both one of the first women to compete on a televised MMA card and the first woman to headline a major MMA event. Promotionally, she's one of the only women to gain serious recognition based entirely on her in-cage accomplishments rather than "sexy promos" or a NSFW Instagram account.
Her popularity and uniqueness have made her conspicuously absent from the UFC...until now.
In just a few days, Cyborg will finally set foot into the Octagon. With the who (Leslie Smith), when (May 14) and where (Curitiba, Brazil) of her UFC debut known, there are two questions worth asking: How did she become one of the biggest stars in women's MMA, and why did it take so long for the UFC to bring her aboard?
Rise to the Top
Women's MMA in the Western Hemisphere was different in 2006. The North American scene was comprised of just a couple dozen women. Weight classes pretty much didn't exist. For promoters, the contests were little more than regional showcases or sideshows meant to turn heads with the absurd notion of two women cage fighting.
There was one fast-growing promotion built around head-turning sideshows, though: EliteXC.
A strange organization for its time, EliteXC attracted hardcore UFC fans with recognizable names like Frank Shamrock, Robbie Lawler and Nick Diaz while reaching a more mainstream audience with stranger matchups made purely to generate headlines. One of the fighters brought in for that purpose was Gina Carano.
Carano gained notoriety by competing in the first sanctioned women's MMA bout in Nevada and quickly caught the attention of television and movie producers with both her knockout power and her striking good looks. While she was initially a bit player in EliteXC, the promotion ran with her rising celebrity and built an entire division around her.
One of the fighters brought in to complement Carano was Cyborg. Debuting in 2005, she mauled her way to a 4-1 record, earning a reputation on the Brazilian circuit for her sheer savagery in the ring. EliteXC picked her up after she defeated Marise Vitoria by beating her into a fetal position and stomping her until the referee stopped the fight.
On July 26, 2008, Cyborg proved that her style would hold up against high-level competition by steamrolling Shayna Baszler in her EliteXC debut.
After weathering a number of submission attempts, Cyborg landed uncontested shots for minutes on end, beating the veteran until she collapsed. The fight was aired live on network television, garnering an audience of 2.6 million. With that, Cyborg instantly became one of the promotion's bigger attractions.
With Carano already a star and Cyborg quickly gaining momentum, the promotional plan for EliteXC became obvious: build up Carano and Cyborg side by side for an epic showdown for the title. With that in mind, they were booked in separate fights on the next card, EliteXC: Heat, to set up the biggest fight in women's MMA history. While both women won their bouts, EliteXC collapsed, sending much of its roster to Strikeforce.
With a dream match dropped in its lap, the Scott Coker-led promotion pulled out all the stops in hyping it. Carano vs. Cyborg was booked as the first women's bout to headline a major MMA card and held the top spot over two men's title fights.
The leading ladies of women's MMA faced off, at long last, at Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg on August 15, 2009. Once again, people wondered whether Cyborg's steamroller-like fighting style would hold up against a similarly talented athlete. Once again, Cyborg proved that nobody could stop her.
#UFC198 FREE FIGHT | @criscyborg vs. Gina Carano
— #UFC198 (@ufc) May 1, 2016
?? https://t.co/Jer7rBFkBk pic.twitter.com/egYP9C8HQp
The action was back-and-forth, but Cyborg made Carano feel her power right from the get-go, and that set the tone of the fight. While Carano did not allow herself to be outmuscled, Cyborg was quicker to the punch and had the better all-around clinch game. Time went on, and Cyborg's pure power physically and mentally wore Carano down until a deluge of ground-and-pound led to the stoppage in the final seconds of the first round.
In less than five minutes, Cyborg established herself as one of the scariest finishers in the sport and became the new standard-bearer of women's MMA. Carano would never be seen in the cage again.
Fall from Grace
On March 12, 2011, the UFC's parent company, Zuffa LLC, purchased Strikeforce. The news was sudden but not especially surprising. Over the years, any rise in UFC activity was preceded by the UFC buying out a competing promotion, absorbing its contracts and eventually dissolving the company. It happened in 2006 with the World Fighting Alliance, in 2007 with Pride FC and in 2010 with World Extreme Cagefighting.
UFC President Dana White insisted that Strikeforce would "continue to run business as usual," but MMA fans knew what "business as usual" meant. Strikeforce was functionally dead, and women's MMA seemed doomed to sink with the rest of the Strikeforce ship.
Strikeforce put minimal effort into promoting any women other than Cyborg. Outside Zuffa, Bellator FC was dissolving its stacked strawweight division, and no other prominent organizations were regularly promoting women's bouts.
Cyborg was the lone draw in women's MMA and the sole hope for keeping the sport going. Then, she failed a post-fight drug test for anabolic steroids.
The California State Athletic Commission fined her and suspended her for 12 months. She was stripped of her title, and the women's featherweight division was disbanded in her absence. It was a devastating blow to women's MMA, as Michael David Smith of MMA Fighting described:
This is bad news for Cyborg, Strikeforce, Showtime and for all of women's mixed martial arts. Cyborg has been the most dominant female fighter in the sport and one of the few women who draws fans to Strikeforce broadcasts on Showtime. It also calls into question whether her accomplishments in the cage have always been tainted by the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Women's MMA, which is struggling just to survive, just saw one of its highest-profile fighters get a major black eye.
By the time Cyborg's suspension ran its course, the sport was radically different.
Strikeforce was done, limping to its final show on January 12, 2013. Women's MMA had a new face in Rousey, who became an overnight celebrity after taking the Strikeforce women's bantamweight title from Miesha Tate with an elbow-snapping armbar.
Most importantly for Cyborg, the sport was embroiled in a massive scandal because of the controversial testosterone replacement therapy (TRT), a treatment that allowed athletes to work with a doctor to obtain testosterone (which is banned by nearly every governing body in sports).
The UFC was being heavily scrutinized by fans and pundits for allowing fighters previously caught using PEDs to use TRT in fights booked outside the United States, something that then-Nevada Athletic Commission head Keith Kizer told Bleacher Report would otherwise not be allowed.
I don't like that Vitor Belfort fights nowhere but in Brazil since he's been on TRT. If he's a draw, isn't he a draw everywhere? #Shady
— Kevin Iole (@KevinI) August 22, 2013
Speculation ran wild that the UFC was helping fighters like Vitor Belfort abuse TRT.
Its official explanation, that the situation was a coincidence brought about by the demands of Brazilian broadcast partner Globo, did little to silence the whispers. With the heat steadily rising, White added another layer to his company's defense. They may not be perfect...but at least they're not dealing with that dirty, no-good Cyborg.
"She got busted for drugs," White told the media seven days after Belfort turned in a sample that would result in his second flagged drug test due to TRT abuse. "I mean, really look at this thing. You guys want to kick Vitor Belfort in the [groin] every [expletive] second of every day at every press conference and everything else. And you want to ask me if [expletive] Cyborg is going to fight Ronda."
It was an odd, off-base defense on multiple levels, but White and the rest of the UFC were all-in and tore into Cyborg regularly for years.
"When I saw her at the MMA awards, she looked like Wanderlei Silva in a dress and heels," White said in a later interview.
"This girl has been on steroids for so long and [has been] injecting herself for so long that she's not even a woman anymore. She's an 'it,'" Rousey said.
"Her dick," UFC commentator Joe Rogan said on his podcast when asked what could be discussed at a hypothetical roast designed to haze Cyborg out of the UFC (h/t Stephie Haynes of Bloody Elbow), a remark he later apologized for.
In reality, the UFC was never especially tough on PED users. What's more, a number of the imported fighters from the UFC-Strikeforce merger had failed drug tests to their names, including Rafael Cavalcante, Nate Marquardt (who failed two) and Josh Barnett (who failed three).
Still, the UFC's message was clear: Cyborg is the dirtiest player in the game. No matter how much time passes, no matter how many random drug tests Cyborg takes without incident and no matter how many fighters there are with worse histories, Cyborg is irredeemable.
It isn't true, obviously, but repeating the same thing enough times has always been enough to convince many people. A look at social media or the comments section of any article that mentions Cyborg shows that the UFC's years-long efforts to tear down Cyborg achieved the desired results.
Her in-cage skills, however, remained unquestionable.
Continued Dominance
Shortly after Cyborg's suspension ended, she signed a multi-fight deal with all-women's promotion Invicta FC. With a chip on her shoulder, Cyborg entered the cage against Fiona Muxlow looking to win and win big. Boy, did she ever.
Six seconds into the fight, Cyborg knocked down Muxlow with a single right hand and began a prolonged, sadistic beating that seemed to drag on for an eternity. Muxlow tried to limit Cyborg's power by keeping her in the clinch or working for takedowns but never managed to slow Cyborg down.
Time and again, she muscled her way into an advantageous position and either poured on punches or landed devastating knees in the clinch.
Cyborg earned the stoppage at 3:46 of the first round and set up a title shot at Invicta FC 6. Muxlow would never be seen again.
On July 13, 2013, Cyborg faced old foe Marloes Coenen for the inaugural women's featherweight championship. Coenen had given Cyborg one of her toughest challenges to date when Coenen challenged for the Strikeforce featherweight title in 2010, but the rematch was not an especially great challenge for Cyborg.
After a back-and-forth opening minute, Cyborg took complete control of the fight and dominated Coenen on the ground, in the clinch and at range. Coenen survived longer than anyone but did little more than that. At 4:02 of Round 4, Cyborg earned the stoppage and became a champion again.
She has defended the title three times since then, defeating Charmaine Tweet, Faith Van Duin and Daria Ibragimova in a combined six minutes, 29 seconds. All of those wins came via brutal knockout.
UFC Debut and What Lies Ahead
Over the last three years, Cyborg's persistent exclusion from the UFC has been one of the most frequently discussed topics in MMA.
The official UFC explanation is straightforward: Cyborg is a featherweight, and her only way into the UFC is if she can drop to bantamweight. "[Rousey] wants to fight her in a minute if she makes 135 pounds. She wants to fight her," White said in March 2015. He continued later: "[Ronda's] the 135-pound champion and breaking all these records. Cyborg has to make the weight, and this fight is going to happen."
Educated fans knew that a drop to 135 was next to impossible. Cyborg visibly had a difficult weight cut to 145 pounds, and asking her to shave off another 10 pounds was unrealistic. On the flip side, Cyborg repeatedly teased a drop despite previously indicating that it carried enormous health risks, but she never went through with it.
Regardless, for years on end, it felt like the UFC's feverish obsession with keeping fighters in defined weight classes would doom Cyborg's chances of ever joining the UFC. Then, UFC 196 happened.
The welterweight bout between featherweight champion McGregor and former lightweight contender Nate Diaz posted smashing numbers at the box office and on pay-per-view. This apparently served as a wake-up call to UFC brass that fans don't care about weight classes; they just want to see fun fights between interesting fighters.
A few weeks after UFC 196, the UFC finally, at long last, accepted Cyborg into the fold, something she credits McGregor for. "I think McGregor opened the door for this," Cyborg told FoxSports.com's Damon Martin. "He's fighting at different weights. I think he opened the door to make this fight happen."
Her debut comes this Saturday at UFC 198 in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil, where she will face Leslie Smith in a 140-pound catchweight fight.
Cyborg is an enormous -1200 favorite in the fight, via Odds Shark, and rightly so. While Smith is a steely, battle-hardened competitor, she is at a massive size disadvantage (Smith actually challenged for the Invicta 125-pound title) against Cyborg and doesn't have the pure striking chops to contend with her at range.
If Cyborg can get through Smith unscathed, her ceiling in the UFC is limitless. It's uncertain whether the UFC will continue pressuring her to drop down to bantamweight or if it will simply handle her as a special attraction.
Either way, women's MMA fans need to rejoice. Cris Cyborg, if only for one night, is a UFC fighter. It's been a long time coming.
