Before Holly Holm shocked the world by knocking Ronda Rousey’s block off, their fight seemed like a distraction to put off a contest with the true #1 challenger to Ronda: Cris Cyborg. Cyborg has a 14-1 record with 12 wins by knockout. She held the Strikeforce women’s featherweight title until being stripped for failing a drug test, and upon her return to competition took the InvictaFC featherweight title. InvictaFC is the de facto women’s MMA farm league for the UFC, and Cyborg even competes there through a unique deal with the UFC to keep her from signing with competing promotions.
Cyborg and Rousey have been engaged in a war of words since 2012, with a fight between them never coming close to materializing. At the heart of the issue is Ronda’s insistence that Cris drop down to 135 pounds to face her, a feat Cyborg has said could damage her health. Since then, Cyborg has paid lip service to the idea of dropping, but hasn’t even managed to compete at 140 pounds. And now that Rousey has lost, it sounds like she’s done even pretending a drop will come. Via Yahoo:
“Do I still want to fight Ronda? Of course!” Cyborg said. “However, if she wants to be the best she needs to beat the best, and that’s me at my best, not a depleted mirror of myself – which is what she is hoping for by forcing me to 135.”
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“I hope [a fight with Rousey happens] for the fans. But if she was running from me before the loss, imagine how much faster she will be running from me now,” Cyborg said. “I’m not chasing her anymore. After all, didn’t she say ‘You come to the champ?’ I have been a world champion for 10 years!”
Before you curse Cris Cyborg out for ruining this potential superfight, it’s worth noting that Rousey’s demand she drop an entire weight class to fight is unusual to say the least. Typically, fighters move up in weight to face heavier opponents for obvious reasons: The heavier opponents literally can’t make the lower weight. You don’t see Conor McGregor demanding lightweights drop down to featherweight to challenge him. And when similar situations arise in boxing, a catchweight is typically worked out.
But not so in the Rousey-Cyborg situation. Ronda says it’s a response to Cyborg’s prior steroids suspension, and if Cris was off the juice, she’d be able to hit 135 pounds. To her, it’s a matter of principle and she’s not willing to budge, even if only to 140 pounds. Up until now, this reasoning has stood up to media scrutiny. But Cyborg seems to be hedging her bets on public opinion swinging her way. People want to see Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg, and most of them don’t care about a five-pound difference. Will it work out? Or does this just mean the biggest fight in women’s MMA history (yes, even bigger than Rousey vs. Holm 2) may never happen?
