Cris Cyborg: 5 most memorable fights in the former UFC Champion's MMA career

A fighter who was very much in the headlines last month, Cris Cyborg's well-publicized separation from UFC is something almost every MMA fan knows about.

At the moment, Cyborg has gone a step further and signed a deal to compete for Bellator MMA. The multi-fight deal with the company will see her in action in the near future. As a result, there has been excitement among her fans as they get ready to see what the future holds for one of the biggest fighters formerly in the UFC Women's Division.

Although she left UFC, she had several fights during her time there which were quite amazing. With only one loss on her record in the UFC, she found quite some success there.

In this article, we are going to take a look back at her time in the UFC, as well as previous promotions, and talk about the 5 best bouts she had, either for the ability she showed or because of how important it was.

#5 Tonya Evinger

One of the most important fights of her career was the first time that she was involved in the title picture at UFC. Germaine de Randamie had won the title at first after having defeated Holly Holm at UFC 206. She became the first woman to ever hold that title, but would soon have it stripped from her.

Cris Cyborg had a lot of history with PEDs at this point and Germaine de Randamie was not at all eager to face her. Her refusal to face Cyborg was not taken well by a single fan and definitely not the UFC.

The stripped the title for her, making it vacant. As a result, it was up for grabs in a fight between Cris Cyborg and Tonya Evinger.

Evinger put on quite the display, giving Cyborg a run for her money the first time that the latter was fighting at Featherweight in the UFC, her last two fights having been at Catchweight.

Unfortunately for Evinger, Cyborg proved to be more than capable and knocked her out in the third round of their fight, winning the title.

#4 Marloes Coenen

The first time that Cyborg had for Coenen, she had been defending the Strikeforce Featherweight title. That time, after 3 rounds, she was able to get the TKO victory over Coenen.

The second time that the two of them met, they were fighting for the Inaugural Invicta Featherweight Championship. The two of them were able to face each other in quite the epic battle, for the first time Cyborg showed that she was much more than someone who could only knock out her opponent. She displayed an entire arsenal of wrestling and submission abilities, before finishing her opponent with elbow shots.

#3 Felicia Spencer

While this might not be the most important or most hyped Cris Cyborg fight, this is extremely important for different reasons.

It was well known that this was the last fight that Cris Cyborg was contracted to take part in for the UFC. She obliged, but surrounding the fight there existed a lot more bad blood than anyone had expected.

The bad blood was not between Cyborg and Spencer, ut was between the fighter and the UFC President, Dana White. White had been talking about how Cyborg did not want to fight Nunes, and there was a lot going on behind the scenes on both sides.

Eventually, this grew to be toxic and Cyborg never signed a contract with UFC following this fight, opting to leave. Thus now, she is signed with Bellator.

#2 Gina Carano

Every sport that exists had that one moment which it is often defined by or that one moment that put in on the radar in the first place. Cris Cyborg's fight against Gina Carano is just such a fight.

Taking place in 2009, this was at a time that women fighting in MMA were not common at all. The fight was at Strikeforce and this was the time when every fan was on the Gina Carano bandwagon. Unfortunately for Carano, once this fight would take place, that bandwagon would crash and be replaced by the Cris Cyborg train which has since led her to stardom.

With a first-round knockout at the very last second of the round, Cris Cyborg was able to derail Carano, win the fight, and prove herself in the world of MMA.

#1 Amanda Nunes

Unfortunately for Cris Cyborg, the fight that she is most likely to be remembered by most, is the fight that she lost.

In possibly one of the most crucial fights in Women's MMA, Amanda Nunes faced Cris Cyborg for the Featherweight Championship in a bid to become the first-ever UFC Women's Double Champion.

There was a lot riding on this, but not too many people were giving Nunes a chance given Cyborg's success and power in MMA.

Nunes shocked the world.

Within 51 seconds of the first round starting, she did what no one else had been able to do before her. She knocked out Cris Cyborg and became the Dual UFC Women's Champion.

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