Sara Collins is the most inexperienced MMA opponent Cris Cyborg has fought in over a decade, entering Saturday\u2019s PFL Lyon event with only six pro bouts under her belt, but the undefeated Australian feels she\u2019s destined to shock the world.<\/p>\n
Cyborg won her first MMA title 10 years before Collins first entered a MMA bout, collecting the Strikeforce belt and then claiming others in Invicta FC, UFC, Bellator and PFL. Collins earned her chance at gold after a 3-0 Bellator run with two submissions and says \u201cit\u2019s crazy\u201d she\u2019s now challenging the legend from Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cI honestly didn\u2019t think it would ever happen when I first started my MMA career,\u201d Collins told MMA Fighting. \u201cObviously that was always the goal, to fight the best in your division and she\u2019s been the best since I started MMA, so now that we\u2019re here and I get this opportunity, it\u2019s really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins was inspired to transition from judo to MMA after watching her coach Dan Kelly do the same and eventually join the UFC. More inspiration came in the form of seeing fellow judoka Ronda Rousey enter their gym in Australia the week of her UFC 193 clash with Holly Holm in Australia in 2015.<\/p>\n
When she decided to compete in MMA, Collins watched \u201ca lot of videos of Rousey to see what she was doing.\u201d Cyborg vs. Rousey is one of the most infamous fights that never came to fruition and Collins joked that maybe it\u2019s her responsibility to serve as a Rousey proxy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a lot of pressure,\u201d Collins laughed when asked if she feels like representing not only judo but also Rousey in this match. \u201cAnd she didn\u2019t get to fight Kayla [Harrison] either so I feel like there\u2019s a lot of judo people on her list that she could have fought. I guess here I am stepping up for the judo people [laughs].\u201d<\/p>\n
The unbeaten Australia said \u201cit would be really cool\u201d to be the first to submit Cyborg in MMA since her pro debut back in 2005, and \u201cthat\u2019s the goal\u201d Saturday in France.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you haven\u2019t done judo since you\u2019re a kid, it\u2019s very hard to prepare to fight against someone who does judo,\u201d Collins said. \u201cWe just feel things different, move different. I think she\u2019s going to have a hard time preparing for my judo throws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cyborg has teased retirement plans are near after more than 20 years in professional MMA, plus matches in boxing, Muay Thai and grappling, but Collins believes an upset in Lyon could change that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going through her head,\u201d Collins said. \u201cI hope if I beat her, then we can rematch in Australia. I hope [she doesn\u2019t retire]. That\u2019s always been the goal. I always thought if I beat her, then of course she deserves a rematch. That\u2019s what I want. PFL is meant to come to Australia next year, so I\u2019m hoping that we can fight at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
PFL has frame the match so that Collins entering the cage and beating Cyborg would \u201cshock the world\u201d, and the challenger doesn\u2019t feel the narrative diminishes her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s totally fair,\u201d Collins said. \u201cI\u2019ve only had seven fights. I think I\u2019ve had less than one hour in the cage, where she\u2019s probably had like 20 hours, so she\u2019s definitely got so much more experience than I do. And I think I will shock everyone, including myself, if I can go out there and finish her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sara Collins is the most inexperienced MMA opponent Cris Cyborg has fought in over a decade, entering Saturday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-341400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}