THE rather understated co-main event for UFC 240 is the return of featherweight great, Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino against Felicia Spencer. Cyborg is bouncing back from a devastating loss to Amanda Nunes and as Nunes has gone back to bantamweight to defend her belt there, the featherweight division has gotten no better on the whole.
The UFC doesn’t even rank the contenders in the division and most of Cyborg’s previous UFC opponents were asked to chub up to fight her and then simply went back down to bantamweight after the job had been done. After the shock of being completely overwhelmed by Amanda Nunes in under a minute back in December, Cyborg’s aura has certainly been damaged. In spite of that, Felicia Spencer is still being portrayed as a lamb to the slaughter at the Justino altar in this bout.
Spencer’s sole UFC apperance came against Megan Anderson. Anderson—a six foot tall striker—was the hope of most to move the featherweight division forward when Cyborg seemed unstoppable. Certainly, Anderson is one of the few women naturally built for the 145 pound division. The problem was that Anderson couldn’t wrestle and was easily held down for three rounds by Holly Holm of all people. When Anderson returned to the Octagon, Spencer mauled her and submitted her inside the first round.
Training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu since she was twelve years old, Spencer is a legitimate black belt on the ground and it comes through in every one of her fights. She has great transitions and has adapted well to MMA, grinding her way towards the mounted crucifix in most of her fights and using elbows to cut and bruise opponents instead of wasting her time flailing partial punches.
Most of Spencer’s takedowns come along the fence and she will often work the classic Khabib Nurmagomedov series—trying to lock her hands around the opponent and throw them, and instead locking her hands underneath the opponent’s crotch to lift them if they prevent the bodylock.
The classic high crotch lift—a favourite of Randy Couture and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Spencer is also pretty interesting on the feet. A background in taekwondo has given her the ability to throw up lead leg high kicks, wheel kicks, and hook kicks with little effort. When Akeela Al-Hameed had her in a bad spot and was threatening a standing guillotine along the fence, Spencer performed almost a split standing on one leg to repeatedly knee Al-Hameed in the head. That is something you aren’t going to see all that often.
Frankie Edgar fights in the main event and is known for his beautiful meshing of striking and takedowns. Spencer is almost the opposite—she strikes confidently but it has almost no connection to taking the opponent down. Most often she will throw up a weird kick and then fall into the opponent’s chest to pursue a takedown. Against Cyborg, whose wrestling is very solid and who can change a fight with a good counter uppercut, that is a little concerning.
For Justino it seems like the usual Cyborg performance will be enough. She still has the power, and where Nunes shocked her by going blow for blow with her, Spencer does not seem likely to unveil spectacular hitting power just for this fight.
Counter punching and digging underhooks should be the Santos gameplan and sparring a flicky high kick or two she should be able to make Spencer’s life very hard on the feet. The fight gets more interesting if they hit the fence because Holly Holm (again, not known at all for her wrestling) was able to dig underhooks on Justino and control the clinches. If Spencer can get to the same positions as Holm, she could drag Cyborg to the mat, where Spencer really is something special.
