Strikeforce: “Melendez vs Masvidal” takes place on December 17th at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California and features the return of Strikeforce Women’s Featherweight Champion, Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos as she defends her title against 2nd ranked, Hiroko “Cat’s Eye” Yamanaka. This event will be televised LIVE on Showtime starting at 10:30pm EST.
It’s been eighteen months since we last saw Cyborg (10-1) in the cage. In that bout, she battered Jan Finney for two rounds before a knee to the body mercifully brought an end to the contest. Cyborg now returns to make her third title defense, a title she won by defeating Gina Carano in August 2009 via a first round TKO. In her first title defense, she defeated Marloes Coenen via a third round stoppage. While ranked 2nd by the Unified Women’s MMA Rankings, Yamanaka (12-1) still comes into this bout as a sizeable underdog. The 5′ 11 former dominatix began her career in 2006 with four consecutive victories before tasting her first defeat at the hands of submission specialist, Hitomi Akano. Yamanaka would bounce back with three additional wins before avenging her loss to Akano via a split decision. Since then she has tallied four more victories, however in Cyborg she will clearly be facing the toughest opponent of her career.
**Rankings info supplied by the Unified Women’s MMA Rankings.
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