The face of women's MMA gets punished - A look back

August 17, 7:20 AMTampa MMA ExaminerDoug Drexler

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Cris "Cyborg" Santos dominates Gina Carano - Photo courtesy of Sherdog.com

On Saturday, August 15, the biggest fight in women’s MMA was recorded in the history books. The tale of this match was rather one-sided as Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos completely dominated Gina Carano in forcing a first round TKO stoppage.

From the beginning, the power and aggression of Santos was too much for Carano. Santos used constant pressure and never allowed Carano to settle into any type of rhythm.

In the opening moments, Santos landed a flurry of strikes that sent Carano reeling back into the cage, but as Santos shot in for a takedown it was Carano that maneuvered to land in top position.

As Carano threw a few strikes at the head of Santos, she left her leg exposed to a submission attempt. Carano was successful in pulling out of the submission safely, but the stage had been set for Santos to dominate in every facet of the match.

As the fighters scrambled back to their feet, Santos again smothered Carano with multiple power strikes before going for another takedown. Carano was still fresh enough at that point to reverse the takedown to land in the top position and gained full mount.

After landing some blows from the top, Carano let go of the position and stood back up where she had been getting punished from the outset of the fight. The announcers voiced what many were thinking, “What is she doing?”

Carano was successful in landing a few punches, but none of them appeared to have any sting in them.

Santos caught a body kick from Carano, and punished her with strikes up against the fence. Once the fighters separated, they returned to the center of the cage and exchanged punches.

With just less than two minutes to go in the first round, Santos worked her way into the clinch position and wrestled Carano to the mat. She landed a couple of punches, but Carano quickly stood up.

The two exchanged punches again in the center of the cage before Santos gained the clinch position. Using her superior strength, Santos wrestled Carano the mat for the last time. It was the beginning of the end.

Santos was in Carano’s half guard, and worked for an Americana submission. Carano turned out of it, but was unable to get out from under Santos.

With about 15 seconds left in the round, Santos began teeing off on Carano with a furious string of punches. As the horn sounded to end the round, referee Josh Rosenthal jumped in to stop the fight.

There was some momentary confusion inside the cage, but it was ruled that the fight had been stopped at 4:59 of the first round, and Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos is the champion.

Watch the match for yourself on the embedded video below, and see if you agree that it was stopped before the horn sounded to end the first round.

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