Sports

Cris Cyborg Running Scared? MMA Phenom Turns Down Holm, Germaine Fights

Published on: December 7, 2016 at 12:43 AM
By Aric Mitchell

Cris Cyborg has been one of the most feared women in MMA for the last 11 years. After starting with an early loss in her 2005 debut, she has rolled off 17 unanswered victories.

It is important to note that when Cyborg (real name Cristiane Justino) lost, she was a 19-year-old girl new to the sport and was caught in an early submission.

Since then, she has proven a quick study, holding championships at Strikeforce and Invicta FC before advancing to the UFC.

But since her arrival, there have been issues finding adequate competition, mainly because Cris Cyborg attests that cutting weight for her is too difficult and most of the talent is at 135 and 145 pounds.

Recently on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, the MMA fighting organization’s President Dana White appeared to discuss a number of different topics relative to his company.

Among the most memorable were his comments on Cris Cyborg. White said he had offered the MMA phenom two fights, and that she had turned them both down claiming she didn’t have enough time (at 12 weeks) to make weight.

White, who has had contentious negotiations with Cris Cyborg in the past, said that the company had offered her both Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie.

Both women were willing to tangle with Cristiane, which isn’t very common in the sport. Since 2005, she has won every fight by TKO save for two, which were convincing unanimous decisions.

For the longest time, the superfight fans were hoping to see was a matchup with Ronda Rousey. Holm defeated Rousey in November 2015 at UFC 193 and Ronda hasn’t fought since.

While she will rectify that by the end of the year against current UFC Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes, she has stated the fight will be one of her last.

If it’s a loss, many industry analysts think it will be her actual last.

Either way, the chance for a Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg match is dwindling.

Well, Cris Cyborg got wind of White’s comments from the UFC Unfiltered podcast, and she wasn’t happy. She explained herself in a rather lengthy commentary with MMA Fighting .

Cristiane contends that while trying to cut weight for her last fight with UFC, “I almost died.”

She continued.

“I was in the bathtub cutting weight, and I thought, ‘I will die in this bathtub.’ It was the worst weight cut in my life. My nutritionist George Lockhart, who, by the way, is a UFC employee, didn’t do an effective job with this birth control pill he indicated saying that would help me. But thank God, in a war, I made weight, cutting 24 pounds in a week. My body was retaining a lot of water. The last time I spoke with George Lockhart was in the locker room before my fight. He disappeared after the fight. I’m not working with him anymore.”

Cyborg said she was in a bad state following the weight cut and that her nurses couldn’t draw blood “because it was too thick.”

“You can see that I give no interviews after the fight. I told UFC Brazil PR Lilian (Caparroz) that I wanted to cancel all my interviews and couldn’t travel. After all that, at home, I decided I would not fight at this weight anymore, that I would only fight at my division. And only with 12 weeks’ notice. For my last fight, they told me eight weeks before,” Cris continued.

Cyborg did acknowledge the two fight offers, but in light of the weight cutting difficulty, she stands by the idea she can no longer compete at 135 or 145.

Of course, some are already speculating that this is a power play on her part to get Rousey up in weight for a potential fight on her terms.

But what do you think, readers?

Is Cris Cyborg running scared from UFC competition, or is she telling the truth about the weight cut? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by UFC]

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