Cris Cyborg on her game plan for Amanda Nunes: ‘I’m the pressure’

Cris Cyborg knows that Amanda Nunes has made her name as a pressure fighter. Everyone from Miesha Tate to Ronda Rousey can tell you what happens when the UFC bantamweight champion decides to turn up the volume in the cage.

But Cyborg is an altogether different level of fighter, even as compared to other former titleholders. The current UFC and former Strikeforce and Invicta featherweight champ is considered by many the greatest women’s fighter of all-time, and she doesn’t believe Nunes is ready to handle what she’ll bring when the duo compete in their champion vs. champion superfight at UFC 232 in Las Vegas.

“I train for everything, I have five rounds,” Cyborg said at Friday’s UFC 232 press conference in New York City. “I watch a couple fights with Amanda and I know she like to do pressure but she doesn’t like when fighters put pressure on her. I’m the pressure. When she puts her best punch on me. I’m gonna be the pressure. She’s going to feel that.”

Speaking of pressure, Nunes successfully resisted the pressure Cyborg placed on her via social media to get this fight made sooner in the year. And the fact that it has taken nearly a year from when Nunes called Cyborg out following Cyborg’s victory over Holly Holm and the bout actually happening.

“We don’t have any problem,” Cyborg said. “Just accept the fight with her when I fight Holly Holm, and she ask for nine months for training for this fight, and I think when you’ve calling somebody out, you have to be ready, not nine months to be ready.”

Cyborg, who said she feels she has about five MMA fights left in her career, detailed her version of potential Nunes matchups at UFC 226 and UFC 228 which didn’t pan out.

“The first thing UFC called me and my manager for fight Amanda Sept. 8,” Cyborg said. “And the other thing was fight on three weeks notice for Amanda in July. And then nothing happened. And I accept to fight her Sept. 8. after she called me out six months before and she said no I signed a deal to fight December. You’re not fighting, I have no other options but to train and wait.”

Cyborg wasted no opportunity to take swipes at Nunes during the press conference, including reference to Nunes pulling out of her scheduled UFC 213 fight with Valentina Shevchenko on the morning of the fight.

“Let’s do this,” Cyborg said. “Let’s see. You need nine months to train for that. Keep work hard, and make sure you’ll be there, because last time, you pull out before fights. Make sure you’re going to be there. I’ll believe when you’re in the cage, be in the cage and close the door, I know you’re going to be there. I hear this story before, to wait, and then don’t fight.”