Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos dominates Gina “Conviction” Carano

In the first women’s fight to headline an MMA pay-per-view, Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos  scored a first-round technical knockout victory over Gina “Conviction” Carano at 4:59 of the first round, overwhelming her with aggression and eventually finishing the match with a barrage of strikes on the mat.

“I felt it was time to finish the fight,” Santos said through an interpreter. “I didn’t know there was like five seconds left in the round. I just kept punching and punching.”

The intensity of the fight grabbed the audience’s attention right from the beginning. Cyborg appealed with her much bigger size. She appeared stronger than Gina Carano did. Carano exhibited the unconquerable attitude and refused to give in, landing a good share of strikes, holding Cyborg onto the ground.

Carano covered up and took 15 unanswered strikes on her arms and to her face that got through her guard. When Carano stopped moving and defending herself, referee Josh Rosenthal stopped the fight.

Strikeforce’s card at the HP Pavilion, headlined by Carano-Santos, attracted 13,524 fans, one of the biggest non-UFC crowds in the history of the sport. There was little question the crowd came to see Carano, who came across as a star at the level of a fighter like Georges St. Pierre or Chuck Liddell. The notion that people were not interested in seeing women fight was clearly put to rest.

“Since the beginning, I knew this fight would be hard,” Santos said. “That’s why I trained so hard for this fight. The key for tonight was five years of training.”

In a lot of ways, it could appear as if this is the worst imaginable outcome for Strikeforce with its poster girl losing, however another possibility here, that Cyborg’s win adds additional major drawing card to the company’s rising roster.

Gina Carano had an unrivaled record. However, it seems she was not fully prepared for this historic fight against the Brazilian.