The most dangerous fighter in women’s MMA announced her presence with authority Saturday.
Then, moments later, she seemed to downplay her own future inside the Octagon.
Cris “Cyborg” Justino made short work of Leslie Smith at UFC 198, battering her underdog opponent with a few crisp punching combinations and one lightning-quick flurry en route to a first-round TKO stoppage.
It was a victory years in the making for Justino. She has long been regarded as the most dominant women’s fighter in the world, but the UFC has no weight class where she might easily fight. Her journey to this bout was arduous and sometimes ugly.
Just seeing her sprint to the cage, high-fiving the fans in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil, felt like a watershed moment, both for her and the UFC. But when the fight was over, Justino hedged her bets a bit on what she’ll do next.
She didn’t call out current UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate, former champ Holly Holm or longtime nemesis Ronda Rousey. Instead, she indicated she’ll go back to the independent, all-female organization InvictaFC where she is the 145-pound champion.
“I’m the Invicta champion and I want to defend my belt,” Justino told UFC color commentator Brian Stann through an interpreter. “I can also fight at a catchweight in the UFC, but I’m the champion [there].”
So that—along with her easy, one-minute, 21-second starching of Smith—made her long-awaited UFC arrival seem a tad anticlimactic.
Cyborg and the UFC have long gone back and forth about whether she can safely make the bantamweight limit of 135 pounds. Along with strawweight (115 pounds), those are the only weight classes the world’s largest MMA promoter offers for its female athletes.
This fight against Smith was contested at 140 pounds, and, though Justino weighed in at 139 pounds, it still felt like a long way off from bantamweight.
Now that we’ve seen her in action in the Octagon, however, it seems silly for the two sides to continue to quibble over weight. Justino could be a force of nature inside the UFC, if she were allowed to be.
There’s no one else quite like her in women’s MMA. No one with her blend of size, speed and ferocity. It’s obvious the UFC must find a weight class where Justino, Rousey (assuming she returns), Holm and Tate can all fight each other.
If it can do that, there will be a lot of interesting options on the table, including this one from Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com:
If Rousey isn't ready, Cyborg vs Holm at MSG would generate a ton of interest. NY Post had a full page spread on Cyborg today.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) May 15, 2016
If it can't, then it might just keep serving Justino with one-off catchweight fights like this one against Smith, which all along felt contrived to make Justino look good.
Prior to Smith’s own arrival in the Octagon in 2014, she fought in Invicta’s flyweight (125 pounds) division. She probably still would if the UFC offered that weight class. Meanwhile, Justino is a natural 145-pounder.
So what you had here, essentially, was Smith coming up a weight class and a half to meet Cyborg, who was coming down just to make 140 pounds. Against a fighter the caliber of Justino, it all meant that Smith never really had a chance.
Smith seemed undaunted during most of the week’s pre-fight festivities. It had been just 55 days since her last UFC fight, a win over Rin Nakai in Australia. Once the actual bout began, however, Smith appeared a bit tentative.
Justino came out of her corner aggressively, flicking out a leg kick and firing off combinations with her hands. Smith offered very little in response. The first time Justino let her offense open up, she stunned Smith with a left hook and then dropped her to the mat with a right.
She followed up with a series of punches and hammerfists that forced the referee to step in and call a halt to the action. Smith protested the stoppage, but she was clearly in a lot of trouble on the ground.
“This is a dream come true,” Justino said when it was over. “Many people who have followed me since the beginning were waiting for me to come to UFC. I’m very happy.”
What happens next, however, remains a mystery. Either the company must convince one of its other three female stars to meet her at a catchweight, or Justino will have to make the bantamweight limit.
Otherwise, she'll go on being MMA's bloody queen, with no place for her to rule.
