Big Bad blog Video Theater-Cris Cyborg vs Holly Holm

Here's the match video of Cris Cyborg vs Holly Holm from last night's UFC show in Las Vegas. I thought that if Cyborg fights the way she normally does, the result was going to be very similar to the Tonya Evinger fight, a third round finish. But Cyborg's trainer Jason Parillo has convinced Cyborg to be more patient. And that patience could have cost Cyborg this fight. I scored the fight 50-45 for Cyborg. Round two was close but I thought Cyborg pitched a shutout. The problem was Holly was winning after two rounds. Two of the three judges scored round one 10-9 for Holly. And they all scored round two for Holly. What did Holly do in round one to get that scoring? She did a lot of clinching on the fence but I thought that was a stalling tactic so I can't explain what they saw to give her that round. And if you look at the fight stats, Holly's main problem is she didn't land enough strikes. Cyborg outstruck her in each round by a significant margin. This didn't surprise me because Holly doesn't fight aggressively. She's looking for an opening to land a big shot. That never came in this fight. I guess Cyborg underperformed. This was the first Cyborg fight to go the distance since she beat Yoko Takahashi for EliteXC in 2008. Reasons for this atypical performance could be that she had trouble breathing through a bloody nose, something that was a first. It also looks like she may have broken her right hand. But I think Cyborg and Parillo need to rethink this patience strategy because it could have cost her this fight against a more active opponent. This got a Fight of the Night bonus. All of the fights that went the distance on last night's show were blah so I didn't think there should be a FOTN bonus. Afterwards, Cyborg talked about facing Megan Anderson in her native Australia. She needs an xray on her hand first. So I guess I like the old version of Cyborg better than this patient version. Check out the fight for yourself.