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Cris Cyborg Is Done Chasing Ronda Rousey: ‘You Come To The Champ’

By Aric Mitchell
Published on: 05:53 PST, Dec 11, 2015

Cris Cyborg (real name Cristiane Justino Venancio) has wanted a fight with Ronda Rousey for years, but she has faced an uphill battle due to Cyborg’s weight-cutting complications, and Rousey’s unwillingness to fight at a 140-pound catchweight.

In the past, Rousey has noted that Cris Cyborg needs her a lot more than she needs Cris Cyborg, and Ronda made it clear that “you come to the champ.”

Now that’s a message Cyborg is turning around on the dethroned UFC star.

In comments to Yahoo Sports, the current Invicta FC Featherweight Champion opened up about the possibility of fighting Ronda, and the reality that she no longer needs her after Holly Holm laid waste to Rousey’s legacy at UFC 193.

“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.”

Shortly after the Holm-Rousey upset, the Inquisitrran an op-ed about how Cris Cyborg now holds all the cards in this fight dynamic. The sentiment of that piece is now clearly something with which the 145-pound star fully agrees.

Cyborg now feels empowered to focus on defending her Invicta FC belt, and she even told Yahoo that she “owes it to her division” to defend the title instead of continually “chasing” Ronda for a fight.

“I hope [a fight with Rousey happens] for the fans,” Cyborg continued. “But if she was running from me before the loss, imagine how much faster she will be running from me now. 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!”

Not only that, but like Holly Holm, Cris Cyborg has also laid waste to another one-time “face of women’s MMA” in Gina Carano, whom she TKO’d in Round 1 of their much-anticipated Strikeforce bout.

For Cyborg, Rousey was the last “pretender” standing in the way of her rightful place at the top of the sport.

Now that Holly Holm has done the work of beating Rousey for her, there seems to be little motivation for Cyborg to cut her weight, which is something she appears to be gravely concerned about, especially in lieu of a recent fighter death trying to do the very thing Rousey and UFC President Dana White were asking of her.

That said, Cyborg apparently has no issue with losing a few pounds for a possible fight with Holly Holm, whom she respects a great deal more, according to her comments to Yahoo.

“I respect Holly because Holly is different than Ronda,” she said. “Holly is a true fighter that wants to fight the best and because of that I believe she would fight me at 145 or meet me at 140.”

That is unlikely to happen anytime soon as White has already penciled in the Rousey-Holm rematch for July 9 at UFC 200.

Holm has not answered Cyborg’s talk of a possible match, and for the next eight months, she will likely have little time to think about it in preparation for her second showdown with Ronda.

Holm has never shied away from facing an opponent in her 50+ fights [boxing, kickboxing, MMA], so the last remaining question — if she gets past Rousey in July — is, will Dana White let her face Cris Cyborg, or is he, too, “running” from her?

What do you think about a Cris Cyborg-Holly Holm matchup, readers? And do you still have any interest in Cyborg-Rousey? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via Fox Sports Twitter]

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