The Blueprint: 9.10.09: Deprogram the Cyborg

Posted by Patrick Mullin on 09.10.2009

Cristiane Santos may be the baddest female on the planet. Can anyone beat her? I think you already know our answer.

Cristiane Santos may be the baddest female on the planet. Can anyone beat her? I think you already know our answer. This is a first for The Blueprint as we'll be treading into the dangerous waters of female MMA, and take a look at the Strikeforce 145 pound women's champion Cris "Cyborg" Santos. After smashing the pretty face of Gina Carano and sending her to the hills of Hollywood, Cris is on top of the female MMA world. But save for Curt Hennig and Ernesto Hoost, nobody's perfect.



1) Classic Chute Boxe - Chute Boxe produced some of the most feared strikers in MMA history. Wanderlei Silva, Shogun and Ninja Rua, and even Anderson Silva spent their formative years as part of the legendary striking camp. While all but the Rua's have left there for the time being, the camp still has a ton of prestige for the success they've experienced even to the present day.

Chute Boxe however is not a great camp for technical proficiency. Their striking is wild and unpredictable, and while that poses a great threat to a lot of people, a very good technician is able to simply see the openings left in the fury and exploit them. We've seen it happen. The benefit for Cyborg however is that most of the females are not technically proficient strikers and tend to fight similarly to her with wild swinging and reckless abandon. You play right into her hands when you fight like that, but not everyone will. A sound striker like an Erin Toughill or Tara LaRosa may be best suited to take advantage.

2) Ring Generalship - This is another problem with the Chute Boxe style. While the Chute Boxe methodology is to attack and keep pressing forward, they don't know anything about controlling the ring/cage. In Cyborg's fight with Gina Carano any time she had Carano hurt and backing off, Carano did the right thing and circled out and used the space of the cage to separate from her. Cyborg rather than use angles or cut her off simply followed her around like a puppy.

Most girls in MMA don't have this problem, as opposed to the lack of technical striking that seems to be an epidemic. Carano used the ring to her advantage against Cyborg or she'd have been finished much sooner. Toughill's days as a boxer have her well prepared to use footwork and control the distance in the ring to avoid being cornered or put against the ropes or cage. Marloes Coenen is a BJJ ace who always is aware of where she is in the ring and where to set up a proper shot. Sarah Kaufman has also shown a great awareness of ring/cage placement in her fights. Cyborg needs to learn to cope with this or she will be easy to take advantage of over the five round haul.

3) Bottom Game - Perhaps one moment in Cyborg's fight with Gina Carano had us all scratching our heads more than any other. Gina was able to achieve mount in the fight, and rather than even try to work with the position she simply relinquished it and allowed Cyborg to stand back up. Considering that Cyborg was completely dominating Gina when standing, the only conclusion some of us could draw was that Gina was afraid of Cyborg on the ground. Maybe it was the sloppy kneebar attempt that Carano got out of that made her cautious, or maybe it was Carano feeling self-conscious about her own ground game.

The fact is Gina Carano is a Muay Thai specialist not known for her ground skills. However she was still able to go to the ground with the bigger and stronger Cyborg and achieve the optimal ground position. There are quite a few women with a good ground game. Miesha Tate is a tremendous wrestler. Amanda Buckner is a BJJ prodigy, and we've already mentioned Marloes Coenen who has tremendous grappling skills. In addition to her boxing Erin Toughill has also been studying BJJ for years.

Who Can Beat Her?


Erin Toughill EVEN Toughill is a veteran, having started her MMA career in 1999. She fought the massive judoka Irina Rodina who weighed in at over 200 pounds and was able to neutralize her world-class grappling and beat her, so while Cyborg may have a size advantage over Erin she won't be any stranger to it. Erin's experience as a professional boxer has refined her striking to a level above the majority of other women in MMA. She hasn't legitimately lost a fight in 9 years, and her last loss was 5 years ago when she was disqualified for throwing an elbow in the finals of the Smackgirl 2004 Remix tournament, when she defeated Marloes Coenen in the same night. She's been training in BJJ for the better part of 10 years, and is training her grappling skills at Xtreme Couture. If anyone can beat Cyborg, I give Erin the best chance.


2) Sarah Kaufman 2:1 - This young Canadian prospect has a tremendous upside. She can take the lead with her dangerous 1-2 and leg kicks, or sit back and counterpunch you to death. Her sprawl is improving each time out as well. She holds wins over seasoned competitors like Tate and Shayna Baszler. Her submission defense still has something left to be desired as Ginele Marquez had her in danger, but she's still young and improving. My main question is if she could take the striking power of Cyborg.


Miesha Tate 3:1 - How would Cyborg do when faced with an elite level female wrestler? This is what a fight with Miesha Tate would answer for us. Miesha was defeated in a tough bout with Kaufman recently, but mainly due to Kaufman's sprawl ability preventing Tate's wrestling from asserting itself. Cyborg has been defeated via submission in her only loss to date, and if Gina can mount her Tate is likely to be able to. Whether she could press the advantage is the big question. She has a tremendous chin as proven against Kaufman and she'll need it against Cyborg.

That's all for this week folks. Agree? Disagree? Let us know by leaving some comments.


Mail Bag
Welcome back my loyal readers to this week's edition of…THE BLUEPRINT! We're taking the most invincible, the meanest, the toughest, the best of the best in MMA and giving you the secrets to success against them. Let's let tradition dictate however, and look at some comments from last week.

From: STG (Guest): "You give Lesnar 2:1 odds of beating him...and then talk about how you think there's going to be a new new champ come 106...

Just saying, you probably shouldn't have polar opposite opinions in literally the same paragraph. It's one thing to think Shane's going to win, and another to give his opponent 2:1 odds of beating him."

If you know how to read odds, giving Brock 2:1 odds against Shane Carwin means Brock is an underdog. There are lots of great literacy programs throughout the world and perhaps you can use the internet to find one instead of making an ass of yourself while trying to make an ass out of someone else.

From: AdamS (Guest): "How exactly is he supposed to beat Brock when he lets people hit him. Brock hits a hell of a lot better than Gonzaga does. And all the division 2 wrestling in the world doesn't mean much more than the fact that Carwin will know the names of the moves Brock is using to pwn him."

He's supposed to beat Brock by landing on Brock's suspect chin first, because Carwin's hands are much faster than Brock's. Brock may hit harder than Gonzaga, but he certainly doesn't hit better. Gonzaga has quicker hands and his striking is much more educated than that of Brock. Watch the three right hands he hits Shane with in their fight. They're all perfectly thrown right crosses.

Had Shane competed exclusively against D2 wrestlers you may have a point. But Shane and Brock actually have a lot of common opponents from their collegiate days, one of whom was Stephen Neal, and their records against said common opponents are almost identical. Keep in mind neither man has competed in the NCAA in over a decade, thus the not so great divide between their wrestling skills has gotten even thinner.

From: Shawno420 (Guest): "I don't see Carwin beating Lesnar, but it is possible. I think the chance of Carwin knocking Lesnar out is as good as Lesnar knocking him out. Lesnar has faced decent strikers like Couture, Mir and Herring(actually, did Herring even land a punch the whole fight?), while Carwin has faced Gonzaga and got knocked down. I'm not saying Lesnar has a good chin(I think it's still unknown), but I think we know that Lesnar can take a punch, whether he can take a bomb from Carwin is another story."

Couture, Mir, and Herring are not decent strikers. Mir's striking is ok, but it gets greatly exaggerated from his performance against Nogueira. How hard is it to miss punching a guy who doesn't move his head? Couture isn't a striker worth a shit. He uses the clinch striking to set up for takedowns, nothing more. He's never knocked out anyone standing up. He has to use the clinch to go for takedowns because his double leg shots are shitty and always have been. He has to go back to his Greco-Roman roots and use clinch takedowns. Herring is a striker? The only guys of note he beat with strikes are Enson Inoue and Gary Goodridge. Not exactly murderer's row.

From: bryan (Guest): "first he could not beat heath herring then randy ,mir was going to summit him,and now you have carwin winning the fight . brock is going to knock him out 1st round carwin is a over rated piece of shit."

When did I ever say Brock wouldn't beat Herring, Randy, or Mir? I've only been writing for the site since just prior to UFC 99, and if you actually looked at our 100 roundtable I said Brock would KO Mir with relative ease. Herring is the ultimate MMA jobber to the stars, and if you want to talk about two guys who are the definition of overrated, Randy Couture and Frank Mir are prime examples. Couture hasn't won a fight in two years, and Mir made his name with a gift over Brock and beat up a shot legend in Big Nog. Shut your mouth.

From: AGN (Guest): "There is no chance that Lesnar loses to Carwin. In fact, I think Carwin would lose fights with: Lesnar, Mir, Nogueira, Couture, Arlovski, and Cro Cop.

After 106, when you look in the dictionary, next to the word "Overrated" you will see a picture of Shane Carwin's hamburger beaten face."

So Carwin is overrated yet you're singing the praises of Couture, Mir, Nog, and Crocop? Mirko hasn't beat a top 10 heavyweight in three years and lost to two top 15's. Couture just got his ass kicked by Featherfists McBrainDamage, who can't take a punch anymore yet stood up to all of Randy's, and Frank Mir who hasn't proven anything other than if you hit him enough times his face looks like hamburger meat.