On Friday night at Bellator 259, Cris “Cyborg” Justino and Leslie Smith will run back their UFC 198 scrap from over five years ago. Although it is a solid piece of booking that will likely end with a highlight-reel finish–similar to the first fight–there were other matchups that made more sense for Justino’s second Bellator title defense. Here are “4 opinion bombs on Cyborg/Smith II,” and why Bellator is asking fans to suspend too much sporting disbelief with their latest event headliner.
4 opinion bombs on Cyborg/Smith II: There is no good reason to expect the rematch to be different
Friday’s main event is retreading a familiar road. If you weren’t aware of it by now, Justino and Smith have already come together for a dance of fists and feet. On that night in May 2016, Justino was a -1600 favorite. That is an absurd number that came five fights before the Brazilian’s eventual fall to Amanda Nunes at UFC 232 two years later. Yet even when factoring in age and evidence that the former Ultimate Fighting Championship featherweight is indeed not invincible, she is still a -1000 favorite with oddsmakers heading into the event.
This isn’t saying oddsmakers can’t be wrong. But they are using their eyeballs, a wealth of information, and a certain level of expertise to come to this massive betting conclusion. Cyborg is three years younger and has lost just once over the last 15 years. And that lone defeat came at the hands of the greatest female fighter in combat sports history. Since that stunning knockout loss, she has won three straight. Two ended early and in the other, she won every round on the scorecards in her dominant win over Felicia Spencer at UFC 240. Essentially, while derailed momentarily by “The Lioness,” the Justino dominance train returned to the track and has chugged along ever since.
As for the natural bantamweight in Smith, after her UFC release in April 2018, she has made a go of it in Bellator as a 10 pounds heavier featherweight. The results have been solid, as she’s won two of three. However, she has not made the sort of noise in those wins that you would assume for a fighter earning a championship opportunity with a legend still in peak form. Her run in the promotion has not even been enough to crack the top-nine on the organization’s women’s pound-for-pound rankings, or even the top-three in her own weight class.
To expect a sudden change in this five years older rematch, when both are in similar positions in the division’s hierarchy as the first time, seems like a bit of booking folly and a disservice to fans tuning in for competitive fights.
Age is DEFINITELY a number in this fight
One of the great things about professional athletics is the chance for aging talents to defy their younger contemporaries and reach the highest levels of their sport. It is what makes competitors like Tom Brady, Randy Couture, and Manny Pacquiao such legendary figures. However, they are also championship outliers and not necessarily setting new rules. Plus, they were the elite talents that others needed to chase, and not the other way around.
Smith has long been a respected talent in mixed martial arts. Competing against many of the best women’s bantamweights of the last decade. However, while she has notable wins over talented combatants like Irene Aldana and Jennifer Maia in their early days, she has just as many losses in many other pivotal moments in her career. And those came during what was considered her athletic prime. She is no longer in her prime, just three months away from her thirty-ninth birthday, so it’s safe to assume she isn’t bringing a better version of herself athletically for this rematch.
No doubt, the Californian will go into the cage on Friday and display the toughness and skills that earned her 12 professional wins. But to expect her to have a strong chance of defeating “Cyborg” a second time around is an extreme leap of faith for fans to make. Especially, when her opponent is only 35, hasn’t shown evidence of conversations with mothertime just yet, and we’ve already walked this road before in a one-minute and 21 seconds long first fight.
It feels like a forced booking playing more on past UFC history, and less on a fight with strong odds of winning for both. Which in the end is what fans want to see. A championship fight with a true threat for the champion and legitimate possibilities for the challenger, outside of the notion “anything can happen in a fight.”
What about Cat Zingano?
This article isn’t a hit piece on the talents of Leslie Smith. Not at all. It’s a hit piece on the booking of a fight that has a great deal of prestige. A case could be made for Smith deserving this opportunity. As mentioned before, she has won two of three in the organization, and those victories came against top-10 ranked talent in Sinead Kavangh and Amanda Bell. Furthermore, at least in Bellator history, Smith has yet to face Justino. While second-ranked Arlene Blencowe and top-ranked former champion Julia Budd have already gotten their chance. Logical thinking when deciding a title challenger.
However, it begs the question, why not give this fight to Cat Zingano then? “Alpha” has a better overall record. Worked her way up to a UFC title shot in the same division, and at the same time, Smith was in it. Three of her four career losses are to a former UFC great in Ronda Rousey, and two other title challengers, past and present, in Julianna Pena and Megan Anderson (which came via an eye-poke finish). In addition, she already made an impressive debut in the promotion in September and showcased her growth at featherweight with an easy win over Gabrielle Holloway at Bellator 245.
Zingano checked all the necessary boxes of being an established name, success at featherweight and a fresh opponent Justino had yet to face. She would have most certainly been an underdog to the champ, but she would definitely have gotten far better odds than Smith. It’s a fight that would have been much more intriguing to fans than a rematch that seems doomed from the start. As the old saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Did we forget about Julia Budd already?
Then there is Julia Budd. Yes, she was definitively beaten by the former Strikeforce champion in January of 2020. Yes, at times it didn’t even seem close, but she still did far better than Smith against Cyborg and hung in there until to the fourth round. Something only two other women have been able to do in “Cyborg’s” 23 victories.
Would she not have been more deserving of a chance to regain the title she held for four years? A period of time where she was arguably the heart of women’s MMA in Bellator. She’s a fighter who has lost just once in 10 fights in the organization, and whose three career setbacks are to maybe the three best competitors in women’s MMA history. In Justino, Rousey, and Nunes. She was certainly worthy of an automatic rematch, but even if she needed to prove herself, she did with a bounce-back win seven months later over Jessy Miele.
Cris “Cyborg” can’t fight forever and will eventually decline in performance just like all fighters do. Meaning the opportunities to showcase her still elite talents are important each time for Bellator. On Friday night, we’ll probably get another classic Justino highlight finish, which will satisfy some. However, these fleeting moments could have benefited from a bit more of a threatening opponent for the MMA legend.
Join the discussion on this topic…
Share