When it was time to step up and welcome female wrecking machine Cristiane "Cyborg" Justino to the UFC, few fighters on the roster were up for the task. Four-fight UFC veteran Leslie Smith was, and signed up what seems like a suicide mission for most outside spectators. Smith is 2-2 in the UFC and only 8-6-1 overall in MMA, with her biggest strength being her volume punching. Thus, a perfect matchup for a brutal, yet technical power puncher like Cyborg.

So where does her confidence come from? The brave 33-year old answered that question on the latest episode of UFC 198 Embedded: She has already shared the ring with the beast from Brazil in the past, when they have trained and even sparred together a few years ago, and both went home with bumps and bruises.

"We had sparred before," Smith recalled. "And we ended up doing a bunch of rounds with the four-ounce gloves on. And I walked away with a bunch of black eyes. And then it was pretty cool, because she sent me a text message, like two weeks later, saying that she had black eyes, too. I was like, yes!

"Every second that she doesn't live up to her own expectations, and the expectations of everybody else, that's a battle I just won," Smith confidently added. "And so I'm gonna win a whole bunch of little battles, and then I'm gonna end up winning the war."

Smith and Justino are going to face each other in the main portion of the UFC 198 broadcast this Saturday, from Curitiba, Brazil.