Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Strikeforce Fighters

8. Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino

The third-greatest female fighter of all time according to Sherdog finishes at a more modest eighth here. While I did her have on my own list, at 10th, she is in many ways an indication that fewer than 10 fighters had great careers solely within Strikeforce. When “Cyborg” joined the promotion, she already possessed her outstanding seek-and-destroy muay thai striking, which calls to mind the golden days of Chute Boxe, drawing comparisons to Wanderlei Silva and Mauricio Rua. She was, however, lacking in terms of grappling, especially compared to later in her career. She started out with an easy, one-sided beating of Hitomi Akano, mercifully stopped early in Round 3, at a catchweight of 150 pounds. She then defeated Gina Carano for the vacant women's featherweight crown, stopping her with ground-and-pound at the end of Round 1. While it's a very important fight historically, being the first women's main event for a major North American MMA promotion, Carano was not a great fighter, especially by modern standards, and “Cyborg” herself showed a number of grappling holes in the bout. She then knocked out WMMA pioneer Marloes Coenen in the third round. Next, she needed just 16 seconds to knock out hapless Hiroko Yamanaka, but the fight was later overturned to a no-contest due to a positive steroid test for Cyborg, leading to a one-year suspension from the sport. So while she was important historically and went undefeated in the promotion, she is technically just 3-0 in Strikeforce, with only two of those being significant opponents, and none truly great.

Continue Reading » Number 7