Cris Cyborg Earns Hard Fought Win Over Holly Holm, Targets Megan Anderson Next
Cris Cyborg had never even seen the fifth round during her career before Saturday night but that didn’t stop the most dominant women’s fighter in history from earning her first title defense with a win over Holly Holm in the UFC 219 main event.
The fight came five months after Cyborg became a UFC champion for the first time but Holm definitely presented the toughest challenge of her career.
As a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion and multi-time boxing champion, Holm definitely came into the fight looking to win and she refused to back down from Cyborg during numerous exchanges throughout all five rounds.
Holm did her best to land straight punches and kicks from the outside and surprisingly she was able to muscle Cyborg around in the clinch a bit whenever the two fighters got locked up against the cage.
Unfortunately for Holm, her punches weren’t doing much damage but whenever Cyborg returned fire she was blasting the New Mexico native with hard, stinging shots that snapped her opponent’s head around like a rubberband.
Holm definitely kept it close through the first two rounds, but as she went to her corner before the third, the left side of her face showed significant swelling especially around her eye, which was nearly closed up.
That was essentially a target for Cyborg for the rest of the fight as the ferocious power puncher kept firing away with big over hand rights that tagged Holm repeatedly whenever they would exchange punches.
Cyborg lands a flurry at the end of the round and catches Holm!!@CrisCyborg #UFC219 pic.twitter.com/AtWkW0tTWu
— UFC (@ufc) December 31, 2017
As time ticked away in the fight, Cyborg’s confidence grew as she knew she could take Holm’s best punches and her ability to return fire was going to do far more damage. Again and again, Cyborg would land her biggest punches with accuracy and power while Holm could only do her best to circle away and try not to eat the blunt force trauma from the women’s featherweight champion.
When the fight ended, the judges all gave the fight to Cyborg with scores of 49-46, 48-47, and 48-47. While Holm did manage to win some rounds on the scorecards, Cyborg out landed her 118 to 44 in significant strikes and 131 to 48 in total strikes.
With her first title defense out of the way, Cyborg wasted no time turning her attention to the next possible contender in line with former Invicta FC champion Megan Anderson waiting in the wings.
“I’d like to fight somebody at 145, maybe Megan Anderson and I’d like to fight in Australia,” Cyborg said.
Anderson wasted no time responding and she obviously likes the idea of fighting Cyborg in her native Australia.
Great fight ladies! Congrats Cris on retaining your belt! ???? @ufc I think there's only 1 fight to make now against a legit featherweight. #UFC219
— Megan Anderson (@MeganA_mma) December 31, 2017
UFC 221 takes place in February and the card will be headlined by middleweight champion Robert Whittaker against Luke Rockhold. It would be a quick turn around but adding Cyborg vs. Anderson would obviously be a big co-main event for the card in Australia.
