Megan Anderson has had it up to all 6’1” of her commanding figure with the UFC’s featherweight division. It has been nearly two years since the start of the 145 division in the promotion, and, in many ways, it still feels like day one:
“This division is so up in the air at the moment, I’m just going fight to fight,” Anderson told MMA Fighting on Thursday. “Because who knows what’s gonna happen.”
Megan Anderson’s frustration begins with the fighters who are supposed to be active in the division, specifically the women from season 28 of The Ultimate Fighter, a division that was supposed to help build the featherweight division with new talent. The problem is that the talent, Anderson says, has exploited the division as a path to a UFC career:
“It’s just one of those things that just f*cking pisses me off,” Anderson said. “I don’t know. If you want to be in the UFC at 135 pounds, just f*cking come out and say it. Don’t play this bullshit about, ‘Oh, I’ll fight at 145 if they want me.’ No, let’s be honest. You don’t want to fight at 145. That’s why instead of calling and campaigning for fights at 145 pounds, you’re now calling out people at 135 pounds. Like, if you really wanted to fight at that weight division, you’d be asking to fight at that weight division. But you’re not.
“So, let’s be real here. You don’t actually want to be in that weight division. So the whole point of The Ultimate Fighter for the 145-pound division was f*cking shit. Because none of you want to be there in that weight division. You just want to go down and thought it was an easy way in [to the UFC].”
Even Macy Chaisson, who was the winner of the TUF 28 season, only has three professional fights and is therefore not a credible opponent for a champion such as Cris Cyborg, Anderson believes.
“How are you gonna build someone like her?” Anderson asked. “You can’t just throw her up against someone like [Cyborg] or something like that. She’s 3-0. Would a commission even sanction that fight? The experience and number of fights is significantly different. What do you do?”
“We have like three people from The Ultimate Fighter season wanting to have fights at 135 pounds,” Anderson said. “So I have no idea what they’re doing. Whatever happens next, happens next and we’ll come to that. Really that all is dependent on my performance on Dec. 29.”
And that performance will be in a matter of hours at UFC 232 when Megan Anderson takes on Cat Zingano on the FS1 prelims. And Anderson hopes that there will be fights available after that and pressures the promotion to ensure that is the case:
“Sign the featherweights in Invicta. Sign the featherweights that aren’t in Bellator. F*cking sign anyone.”
Is Megan Anderson justified in her frustration at the UFC’s featherweight division?
