There are three quite bad fights I see for her in the division- Andrade because she’s a killer, very schooled in the ground game, aggressive and superior to Cynthia in the standup (though I feel calvillo is actually a bit underrated in that realm) and with a ton of cardio to boot.
Joanna because she’s got great takedown defense and if Calvillo can’t get that fight to the ground, she will get picked apart. Between the conditioning and the takedown defense, it would be a nightmare matchup.
And Suarez because I think Suarez is just superior in the realm where Calvillo brings the most to the table. Don’t get me wrong, calvillo strikes me as easily on the best ground game practitioners in the weight class but I think Suarez is a substantially superior wrestler (not just by credentials which is obvious but in terms of mma wrestling) and she can therefore dictate the fight.
Aside from those three, I think Cynthia is honestly capable of beating virtually anybody else in the division or at least giving them quite a tough fight like she did in her close loss to Esparza. She could lose to other upper tiers like Gadelha and KK for sure but I think she could potentially pull it off.
Rose and tecia are two other tough fights for her. Rose is obviously quite well rounded and is one of the best finishers in the division. I’m just curious how her TDD would hold up. We haven’t seen someone even attempt to take her down in the past three bouts from what I recall. If Cynthia could put her on the ground, I think it would be an exciting fight with both looking for submissions.
Tecia has the right style to win with the darting movement and good striking but Calvillo has a way of immediately changing the dynamic of the fight when it hits the ground- like how she ultra quickly put joJo in a dangerous sub-threatening position after a single takedown.
A fight vs. karate hottie or KK would be telling.
