Third time's the charm. Last night Strikeforce confirmed the poorly kept secret that Cristiane Cyborg Santos will defend the Strikeforce 145lb Women's Championship against Marloes Coenen (pictured) on the Jan. 30 Sunrise, FL. show. Of course Cyborg's record is 8-1 and she won the title on Aug. 15 with a win over Gina Carano. Marloes is 17-3 and she won in Nov. over Roxanne Modafferi. The two were scheduled to fight on that show but Cyborg had to drop out after injuring her shoulder at the ADCC grappling tournament in October. They were also scheduled to fight in Montreal in Feb. 2009 but that was cancelled when Cyborg signed with Strikeforce. The bottom line is that though most North American fans have never heard of Marloes Coenen and Strikeforce has done a piss poor job of telling them, Cyborg has never faced anyone with Marloes experience and accomplishments. Marloes has been a pro MMA fighter for ten years and at age 19, she won the very first World REMIX Tournament in Tokyo Nov. 2000. A few days ago, Cyborg told the Brazilian magazine Tatame that she plans to knock out Marloes. But I'm sure Marloes is well aware of Cyborg's fighting style and strategy and has her own strategy planned to counter it. Marloes has twelve submission victories so if Cyborg is reckless, she could very easily get caught in a submission.
As you may have heard, Strikeforce will be back on CBS in April. A couple of weeks ago, Strikeforce owner Scott Coker said in an interview that he doesn't expect Gina Carano to return until Summer 2010 but he hadn't talked to her. Of course Gina is now preparing to film her starring role in Knockout directed by Steven Soderburgh. Coker said last night that he offered Gina a spot on the April show. Of course as fans, we would all like to see Gina return to the cage as soon as possible. Could it happen? I think it's very unlikely. The timing doesn't work. So let's say the filming begins in January. Gina is the star of this film. That means she is in 90% of the scenes. And it's an action film so it's very intense work. So let's say conservatively that filming runs for two months. And it could go longer. This isn't a low budget film. So if she finishes filming in March, that would give her a month to train for the April show. If I was advising Gina, I would tell her to turn it down and hold off until the summer. And I think it's unfair for Coker to tell the media this and put undue pressure on Gina to return. Maybe he should try to promote some of the other women on the Strikeforce roster like maybe Sarah Kaufman and stop fixating on Gina.
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