Gina Carano and Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos became the first female fighters to headline a major televised Mixed Martial Arts event.
After waiting to get them together for more than a year the fight was on and drew over 13,000 fans into the arena with the vast majority of the crowd cheering wildly for Carano.
She was effective early, landing a good sharp jab and avoiding a couple of takedown attempts. But after only a few minutes, Carano seemed to start running out of gas and wasn't able to stay away from the determined Santos who continued to push the fast pace, allowing little time for Carano to catch her breath.
Inside the final minute of the opening round Carano was trapped on the cage, taken off her feet and pounded out by her relentless opponent. With just one second remaining in the round, the referee called an end to the contest when Carano offered no defense to the Santos punishing ground-and-pound assault.
Moments later, there was a new face of women's MMA in the cage. Carano, the media glamour girl as featured on magazine covers had been deposed.
Chritiane Santos becomes the new star of women's MMA, and that now creates a huge upset as it has to be said that the vast majority of all of the promotional energy was devoted to Carano, a fighter with centerfold-quality looks.
Sadly right now there seems to be no fighters waiting in the wings to challenge the new champion and it looks like Santos will have to wait for a challenger to be manufactured in an eight-woman tournament next year.
So where now for woman’s MMA? Because the tremendous success of this event was due more to Carano's status than any general interest in seeing women fight.
No one in the sport can be happy about this result, except for those in the Santos camp. I guess I should wrap this up by saying “Contender Wanted”
