Upcoming matches confirmed for Carano, Cyborg

After Cris Cyborg defeated Shayna Baszler a couple of weeks ago, some fans started clamoring for a Carano/Cyborg match at the Oct. 4 EliteXC on CBS show in Fort Lauderdale. Matches for both have been confirmed but as I predicted, they're not going to face each other until 2009. A couple of weeks ago, Sherdog rumoured that Gina Carano's opponent on Oct. 4 will be Kelly Kobald (pictured). EliteXC hasn't announced it but Kelly confirmed the rumour. She is a teammate of Kaitlin Young at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy but has a lot more experience. Her record is 16-2-1 including wins over Shayna Baszler & Adrienne Jenkins. But she lost her two most recent fights. Kelly lost to Tara LaRosa at the July 14, 2007 Bodog Fight show and then came back a month later and lost to Julie Kedzie at the Aug. 24 Bodog show in Vancouver. Kelly recently told Ad Combat that she was going through some personal problems and taking the second fight probably wasn't the smartest decision to make. Can Kelly bounce back in the highest profile fight in her career? It should be a very interesting fight. Gina's big advantage is she continues to confound the naysayers and exceed expectations in front of the largest audience ever to watch a womens MMA bout. Kelly Kobald is a well rounded performer and will be Gina's toughest test to date.

Meanwhile, it was reported a couple of weeks ago by the Brazilian publication Tatame that Cris Cyborg's next fight will also be on the Oct. 4 show. They also garbled the opponent's name. It turns out the opponent will be womens MMA pioneer Yoko Takahashi. It has been confirmed by Takahashi's manager that the fight will happen on the Sept. 20 EliteXC show in Albuquerque. EliteXC hasn't announced this yet. Takahashi is a long time associate of womens MMA pioneer Megumi Yabushita and Takahashi is assistant trainer at Yabushita's Tomoegumi dojo. She also used to referee for the JD pro wrestling company. Her record is 16-9 and most recently she lost to HIROKO at the Sept. 6 Smackgirl show. Cyborg & Takahashi were supposed to face each other on an April 5 ShoXC show but Cyborg had visa issues and the match was cancelled. Yoko Takahashi has been in MMA for a long time but she's never been a top level talent. She usually wins over fighters she should beat and loses to fighters she shouldn't beat. I don't expect that to change and Cyborg should knock her out in the first round. All this is designed to get you salivating about a likely Carano/Cyborg showdown in 2009.


EDIT:John Pollock of The Fight Network reports that EliteXC has cancelled the Sept. 20 show. It seems they were having difficulty putting together a main event for the show. So for now that cancels the Cris Cyborg/Yoko Takahashi match and there was also supposed to be a match on the show with Michelle Watterson. So we may see Cyborg Oct. 4 after all.