Fans who were excited at the idea of a potential Women’s MMA super fight between Ronda Rousey and Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino are going to have to wait longer than originally expected.
As noted in the past, UFC President Dana White wants to see Cyborg make weight and win in the Women’s Bantamweight division before signing her to the UFC, as the company only has two Women’s weight classes — Bantamweight (135 pounds) and Strawweight (115 pounds), while Cyborg has only ever fought as low as Featherweight (145 pounds).
Cyborg was set to make her Bantamweight debut with Invicta at this Friday’s Invicta FC 10 fight card, however an injury forced her off the show.
Where things get interesting, however, is that when Justino does make her fighting return, which she expects to do in February of 2015, she will not be fighting in the Bantamweight division as she was originally planning on doing, which would have set the seeds for a potential Rousey-Cyborg super fight down the line.
Instead, Cyborg will make her return in her usual Featherweight division.
“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 continued, “Before I got injured, I was around 162 pounds with 12 percent body fat. 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.”
Invicta FC 10 now features “The Karate Hottie” Michelle Waterson returning to defend her Women’s Atomweight Championship against Herica Tiburico this Friday, December 5th in Houston, Texas, airing live on UFC Fight Pass.
With the big UFC 181: Hendricks vs. Lawler 2 and Pettis vs. Melendez PPV coming up soon, make sure to check out MMANews.com leading up to the 12/6 event date.
For coverage of the event, keep up with these pages: UFC 181 NEWS || UFC 181 RESULTS
Talk about this on our official FACEBOOK page, or on our official TWITTER page. You can also talk about it in our popular FORUMS.
