This past summer it seemed as though Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino finally had a plan in place to get a shot at Ronda Rousey and the UFC title. Now it seems as though that fight will never happen.
Cyborg was scheduled to make her bantamweight debut at Invicta FC 10 but an injury forced her out of the event. She now plans to fight in February, but this’ll be for her Invicta 145lb featherweight title.
“I haven’t fought in a long time. With this injury, I believe the best option now will be fight in my division,” Cyborg told MMAFighting.com. “I can’t wait anymore, I need to fight. I’m the featherweight champion and Invicta FC needs me to defend my belt.”
Cyborg making 135lb was going to be a stretch and now having to rehab an injury seems to have made the task impossible.
“Before I got injured, I was around 162 pounds with 12 percent body fat,” she said. “The weight cut is already tough for my division (at 145). I need to do a long work, and that’s why I prefer not to wait much longer and fight in my division.
“I need this motivation. I love to fight. Keeping me at home without a fight is the same to offer candy to a kid and then take it away.”
UFC President Dana White has made it clear that Cyborg will have to successfully compete in “a few” bantamweight fights before she will be allowed to compete in the UFC.
We can now put ‘Rousey vs Cyborg’ in the ‘Mayweather vs Pacquiao’ bracket of fights we will never see.