Gina Carano / Cris Santos, Showtime Tonight!!!
The most important women's MMA fight in history is tonight for FREE for Showtime subscribers, and available on ppv if you don't have it. (eta: please check times; I was wrong: I think the televised portion of the card starts at 10 ET & 7 PT, but I could be wrong again)
The firsts here:
First time a woman's bout headlines a nationally televised fight of any card.
First Woman's title fight headlining over two (or any) guy national title fights.
First time that arguably the two best women fighters in the world, and definitely the two most famous in the western hemisphere, fight each other.
And not totally unimportant, it's for the Strikeforce women's 145 lb title.
I am the most stoked about this for any fight since Arlovski/Fedor.
On top of everything else, it's pretty much a toss-up.
I'm picking Santos primarily because most people seem to be rooting for Gina, but they're about the same size, Santos hits harder but Gina's a little more controlled and is probably a slightly better grappler, plus she has Randy Couture coaching her, which has to be some sort of asset. Despite picking Santos, my actual instinct is to go w/Carano; I think most of the people picking against her are making the mistake of thinking "Cyborg has more muscles than the guys, and Gina too smoking hot to be a great fighter against those muscles". This is a mistake. Win or lose tonight, she is a great fighter. (for pix of both and why the "smoking hot" comment, plus all the male fighters on the card see here (with advance notice to skip the comments; I usually do but since I'm linking y'all I looked; and let me say as strongly as possible, skip the comments: http://mmajunkie.com/news/15854/strikeforce-carano-vs-cyborg-official-weigh-in-photos-an-mmajunkie-com-image-gallery.mma.) That said, picking Cris Santos here, cause her detractors annoy me, and wow does she hit hard.
Given the mass horde of injuries and Nick Diaz failing to show for his SCHEDULED DRUG TEST TWICE CAUSE DUDE POT SHOULD BE LEGAL BUT CMON THIS IS YOUR LIVELIHOOD AND ITS *SCHEDULED* HOW CAN YOU FUCK THIS UP TWICE IN A WEEK?, the seemingly cursed undercard could easily have sucked but is instead pretty damn good, UFC quality fighters in some interesting match-ups;. the Babalu/Mousasi and Melendez/Ishida fights should be especially interesting.
Again, live and free on Showtime tonight (times deleted due to wrongness, check your listings), ppv if you don't have showtime I'm pretty sure.
Note: for people who make the truly dunderheaded mistake of thinking this is in some way relevant to my previous post, see my comment that I'm gonna put in the thread to other post. I'm not messing this up w/reference to that junk, and will likely yell at anyone who does. You have been warned.
The firsts here:
First time a woman's bout headlines a nationally televised fight of any card.
First Woman's title fight headlining over two (or any) guy national title fights.
First time that arguably the two best women fighters in the world, and definitely the two most famous in the western hemisphere, fight each other.
And not totally unimportant, it's for the Strikeforce women's 145 lb title.
I am the most stoked about this for any fight since Arlovski/Fedor.
On top of everything else, it's pretty much a toss-up.
I'm picking Santos primarily because most people seem to be rooting for Gina, but they're about the same size, Santos hits harder but Gina's a little more controlled and is probably a slightly better grappler, plus she has Randy Couture coaching her, which has to be some sort of asset. Despite picking Santos, my actual instinct is to go w/Carano; I think most of the people picking against her are making the mistake of thinking "Cyborg has more muscles than the guys, and Gina too smoking hot to be a great fighter against those muscles". This is a mistake. Win or lose tonight, she is a great fighter. (for pix of both and why the "smoking hot" comment, plus all the male fighters on the card see here (with advance notice to skip the comments; I usually do but since I'm linking y'all I looked; and let me say as strongly as possible, skip the comments: http://mmajunkie.com/news/15854/strikeforce-carano-vs-cyborg-official-weigh-in-photos-an-mmajunkie-com-image-gallery.mma.) That said, picking Cris Santos here, cause her detractors annoy me, and wow does she hit hard.
Given the mass horde of injuries and Nick Diaz failing to show for his SCHEDULED DRUG TEST TWICE CAUSE DUDE POT SHOULD BE LEGAL BUT CMON THIS IS YOUR LIVELIHOOD AND ITS *SCHEDULED* HOW CAN YOU FUCK THIS UP TWICE IN A WEEK?, the seemingly cursed undercard could easily have sucked but is instead pretty damn good, UFC quality fighters in some interesting match-ups;. the Babalu/Mousasi and Melendez/Ishida fights should be especially interesting.
Again, live and free on Showtime tonight (times deleted due to wrongness, check your listings), ppv if you don't have showtime I'm pretty sure.
Note: for people who make the truly dunderheaded mistake of thinking this is in some way relevant to my previous post, see my comment that I'm gonna put in the thread to other post. I'm not messing this up w/reference to that junk, and will likely yell at anyone who does. You have been warned.