Things haven’t exactly gone according to plan for the new women’s featherweight division so far. The division was basically created as a vehicle for Cristiane Justino – better known as Cris Cyborg – but some health issues didn’t allow her to take part in the inaugural 145-pound title fight. Germaine de Randamie ended up defeating Holly Holm for the belt, but she has her own injury woes and no one is quite sure what is going on with her right now.
So what does the UFC do with Cyborg? She wants to fight at UFC 214 in her adopted home of Orange County, but despite rumors to the contrary, it doesn’t look like De Randamie will be there. With the weight class in its infancy, there don’t seem to be a lot of other options currently on the UFC roster. There is one on the Invicta roster though – current 145-pound champ Megan Anderson.
Both ladies called into The MMA Hour today to explain why they’d like to fight each other, and revealed that they were actually scheduled to fight before (via MMA Fighting):
“I am very excited about this fight, and I called out this fight a long time, because I think she’s a 145-pounder,” Cyborg said. “This fight was supposed to happen a long time ago, and then no happen because her manager talked to the UFC and thought she needed more time, needed more fights. But they think this is the real fight. This is the real fight for the belt at 145.”
“People like to go to the media and want to fight Cyborg, but behind [the scenes], when you go talk to the manager in the other room, and then they’ll change game,” said Anderson. “If she really wants this fight to happen, and she agrees that the fight can happen, man, have to put it in the hands of the promotion so we can do this fight.”
Cyborg, a former Invicta champ that is 2-0 in the UFC, is really interested in the fight because she’d finally be meeting an opponent larger than herself:
“Man, I think it would be great,” she said. “[Anderson]’s at 145, and she’s bigger than me. And I think my fans would really like to see me fight somebody who is bigger than me. It’s my division, and I’m really happy to be back in my division to fight.”
It remains to be seen if the promotion will put it together, but if De Randamie is out of the picture, it seems like a great option.
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