The Film Room: Cris Cyborg

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UFC 232 is now available on Amazon Prime.

Cris Cyborg defends her title for the third time this weekend when she takes on Bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes in the co-main event of UFC 232. This is the toughest fight of both women's careers and the winner will go down in history as one of the greatest female mixed martial artists of all time.



By this point in her career, you should know what Cyborg is all about. She made a name for herself in Strikeforce when she defeated Gina Carano for the inaugural woman’s featherweight championship and she has knocked out all but one opponent since. Cyborg’s striking is fairly simple, but her power and aggression are unmatched. Cyborg spent most of her career training with Chute Boxe and she perfectly embodies the style that Raphael Cordeiro has been teaching for decades. Walking forward with jabs and a right hand, looking to back the opponent to the cage where she can dominate them in the clinch or unload with furious combos to the head and body.



Once Cyborg gets her opponent to the cage with nowhere to move, she will unload with a flurry of strikes to the head and body, but these combos are much more technical than they appear. Notice how she rarely overextends on her strikes and is always aware of her cage positioning as to not let the opponent circle away. She will often switch from throwing combos in the pocket to clinching to mix up her attack. Notice how she will also lay off at times and reset the action before going back to her usual flurries.



Although she is almost always the leading attacker, Cyborg also has tremendous countering ability. Since her pressuring style will fluster opponents, they often come forward sloppily out of desperation, where Cyborg can step back and counter. Her counters are generally just a right hook, but she has shown a decent counter lead hook and occasionally an intercepting jab to stifle forward movement.



Since Cyborg is such a dominate striker we don’t get to see much of her ground game, but she is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and has won gold twice in the IBJJF Championship and bronze in the 2009 ADCC Championship. Cyborg rarely shoots for takedowns and instead elects to trip and throw her opponents to the ground from the clinch just to keep them honest and prove she can be just as dominant on the ground as she is on the feet.



Once Cyborg gets the opponent to the ground you would never know she is a black belt under one of the most legendary coaches in the sport. Instead of using her technical prowess on the ground, Cyborg will fire off some of the most vicious ground-and-pound in the sport. In fact, about half of Cyborg’s knockout wins came from dropping her opponent with the right hand and finishing them off with ground strikes. She doesn't have any submission victories in MMA, but we know with her BJJ background that she is certainly capable of it.

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