Cris Cyborg makes among the tiniest turnarounds in her career when she places her UFC featherweight championship on the line vs Yana Kunitskaya at UFC 222 on March 3. Cyborg will go into this most important event as one of the greatest favorites that the UFC has seen in years.
However, when you get past the lopsided principal event, the remainder of the chief card is piled with tough-to-call, competitive bouts. At the time of this writing, none of the four conflicts on the most important card beyond the title bout has a popular bigger than -190.
Cris Cyborg vs Yana Kunitskaya
We observe Cyborg (-1600) because she’s made a career from ruining her opponents. Cyborg has ever been one of the most competitive fighters in the industry but the featherweight champion has learned to exploit that and become much more patient. The real meat to her match is the jab, as Cyborg will relentlessly throw the jab out until a competitor feels the need to fire back — then she will counter with rapid, fight-ending intentions.
Cyborg is a huge fighter that possesses huge strength for tough clinch battles, though she is technically well served in this region as well. Her normal balance and core strength make takedown attempts typically ineffective.
Yana Kunitskaya (+800) is an unknown to many but she’s far from a beginner. The challenger has spent her whole life practicing martial arts and contains a well-versed striking repertoire thanks to her extensive training in Muay Thai and taekwondo. Kunitskaya does her very best work when she can dictate the pace and distance of a fight, working from the outside with her shouts.
In terms of grappling, Kunitskaya is solid although largely relies on her sneaky strength. The technique still has not caught up fully, though there were noticeable improvements. If Kunitskaya can acquire high hands on the ground, she moves well and has great ground and pound.

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