Cris Cyborg: The UFC Is Protecting Ronda Rousey, It Makes Me Laugh
Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino has been making her case for a fight with Ronda Rousey for a long time now. Negotiations with the UFC broke down when her manager Tito Ortiz was unable to hammer out a deal (no surprise there), yet Cyborg is still a legitimate threat to the UFC women’s bantamweight queen.
The recent news that Justino will make the trip to 135 pounds means that a fight with ‘Rowdy’ is becoming more and more likely. CJ has often accused the UFC and Rousey of ducking her, and the tune sounds very much the same in a recent interview with Bleacher Report:
“This makes me laugh,” Justino said. “The focus always gets put on the wrong person. Why do the UFC guys talk bad about me? Because she’s running from me. I’ve been saying for a long time we can do this fight at 145 or 140, but that’s not an option. But it’s OK for her to fight Gina Carano at 140 or 145? Why? Because she’s running from me, and they are protecting her. This is funny to me.”
The weight cutting issue was the main reason that Cyborg was never able to seal the deal with the UFC, but Dana White has also made accusations regarding Justino’s PED bust back in 2011. It seems though, if Cris is able to stay clean and win a few at bw, Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Justino will no longer be a fantasy. She continued:
“Whenever people say something about me I try to prove they are wrong. It doesn’t change me because they keep talking about me, and I keeping going forward. I keep training hard. I keep competing and keep working to improve my skills. It won’t make me change who I am.”
“There is nothing set right now, but I’m hearing maybe I will fight in May,” Justino said. “It will be against a Brazilian girl Ediane Gomes. I am looking forward to defending my belt, but I don’t have a date yet.”
Gomes is a tough 10-2 competitor with fights against Ronda Rousey, Amanda Nunes and Hiroko Yamanaka under her belt. Whether she will provide any sort of challenge to Cyborg’s abilities is rather debatable. In my opinion, Cyborg should be fighting with the elite over at the UFC.
Hopefully we will see Justino in the biggest stage within the next year, if only to give Rousey her chance to silence the doubters, or at least attempt to. Many are picking Justino in a hypothetical fight with Rousey, but only a real meeting of the two will truly answer all our questions.
