Invicta FC 6 - Female MMA

In the last post I said that on July 13, 2013 at Invicta FC 6, Marloes "Rumina" Coenen will take on Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino for the first Invicta FC Featherweight Championship.
But that's just scratching the surface of what will be going on at FC 6.
There will be 13 matches with some of the best in female mixed martial arts in the world, including four of the top ranked featherweight female MMA fighters.

Marloes Coenen vs. Cristiane Santos
Claudia Gadelha vs. Ayaka Hamasaki            
Sarah D'Alelio vs. Lauren Taylor            
Leslie Smith vs. Jennifer Maia   
Jessica Penne vs. Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc            
Joanne Calderwood vs.TBA.                
Ediane Gomes vs. Julia Budd
Bec Hyatt     vs. Mizuki Inoue                
Miriam Nakamoto vs. Duda Yankovich            
Tecia Torres vs. Rose Namajunas            
Ashley Cummins vs. Emily Kagan    
Mollie Estes vs.Veronica Rothenhausler            
Cassie Robb vs. Livia Von Plettenberg

So it looks like on July 14th I will be changing a lot of win-loss records on blogs.....

Who's Next for Cristiane Santos?

Well as pretty much everyone expected...Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos beat Jan "Cuddles" Finney at the "Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum" event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.
And hey, Jan did go more than one round; you have to give her credit for that.

So who is the next victim...I mean opponent for Cris?

Probably the most popular choice is Erin Toughill.
Erin has had some problems with Strikeforce before, but that may all be in the past.
At least for now.
Strikeforce could probably bill this as a "The Beauty vs The Beast" match up and really rack up if it was promoted correctly.

But who are some other worthy opponents out there?

Cris already taken out Marloes “Rumina” Coenen and Gina “Conviction” Carano.

How about Hiroko Yamanaka?
Hiroko is five foot eleven and weighs169 pounds, so she actually has the height and weight advantage over Cris.
Her record is also 9-1-1.

Another possible opponent is Cindy “Battlecat” Dandois.
Cindy is 5'7, 145 pounds and has a record of 4-0-0.
One of her biggest wins was a unanimous win over Marloes Coenen at BOTE - Beast of the East in 2009.

Another good possibility is Amanda “Lioness of the Ring” Nunes.
Amanda is 5-1-0 but one important thing to me here is that she holds a victory over Vanessa Porto, the woman that defeated Cristiane Santos back in 2005.
Of course 2005 was 5 years ago.....

You could also add to this list Shana “Rock Solid” Olsen (4-0-0), Jamie Seaton (2-1-0), Yoko Takahashi (14-11-3) and Emily “Timebomb” Thompson (3-2-0).

And of course the woman that Cris said gave her one of the toughest fights of her life...Vanessa Porto (10-4-0).



Who's Next for Cristiane Santos?, posted to http://femalemixedmartialartists.blogspot.com/ on June 28th, 2010

Female MMA - The State of the Art

In the aftermath of the Gina Carano-Cris Santos fight, I was looking around for inspiration for today's entry.
Here is a sample of the headlines I ran across.....

Do women belong fighting in mixed martial arts?
Baltimore Sun

Does women's MMA have a future?
Baltimore Sun
(Do I sense a pattern with the Baltimore Sun here?)

Carano's loss to 'Cyborg' hurts women's MMA
FOXSports.com

Strikeforce postmortem: Is Santos' win good for women's MMA?
ESPN

Though growing, women's MMA not equal to men's
Florida Today

Female MMA is far from accepted yet.
I keep hearing terms like "not as good as the guys", "lack of depth", "women shouldn't be fighting each other".
And of course "she's ugly, she looks like a man, I don't like her."

Wow.
I thought we had outgrown that kind of thinking.
No Cris Santos is not gonna get in the cage with Brock Lesnar.
Just like Laila Ali has no business in the ring with Mike Tyson.
But that doesn't mean Santos isn't great in her division.
Maybe the WWE and their Diva division has poisoned the minds of sports fans to where they think that a woman cannot be just as good as a man.
(perhaps Lisa Marie Varon will change that idea)

These ladies work just as hard as their male counterparts and should be treated with the same respect.
I'm not saying we should praise sloppy execution in either division.
The women should be (and from what I have seen are) held to the same standards.
But no matter how good some female MMA stars are, they will be judged less than the guys and thats just not right.