‘Cyborg’ Still Wants A Fight With Ronda Rousey

The legendary career of the once undefeated women’s bantamweight queen Ronda Rousey was all head-kicked away by the now-former 135-pound champion Holly Holm, in their main event title clash at UFC 193 last November.

Rousey was once viewed as the baddest chick on the planet and you would be lucky enough to have escaped the first round of a bout with ‘Rowdy’ back in her heyday.

Lower down in the MMA promotion’s ladder, however, was another women racking up a rather impressive first round finish rate of her own, as Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino ruled (and still rules to this very day) the Invicta FC featherweight division.

A bout between Rousey and ‘Cyborg’ has been heavily discussed amongst MMA fans throughout the years, but sadly it has never come to fruition given the Brazilian’s reluctance to drop down to 135-pounds for the then-champion’s title.

‘Cyborg’ has since made her UFC debut, successfully defeating Leslie Smith via knockout in the first round of their bout at UFC 199 in Justino’s hometown of Curitiba, Brazil.

In a recent interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, courtesy of MMA Fighting, ‘Cyborg’ discussed the possibility of finally meeting Rousey inside the Octagon given she is no longer champion and no longer has the leverage to dodge a catchweight stipulation:

“I think this fight has to happen,” Cyborg said. “I think Ronda (said) a lot of things about me, a lot of bad things. A lot of fans forget about, but I never forget about.

I would like to fight her in the cage. I think we have a lot of things to talk in the cage, and not outside the cage. I hope she’s coming back. I want to fight soon. I don’t have time to wait.

I think it would be an amazing fight and all fans would see it,” she said. “I think it would be the biggest fight ever. Me and Ronda Rousey. Everybody wanna watch.”

Justino was then asked if she or her team has reached out to the UFC for a possible bout with Rousey:

“This is something you don’t need to ask,” Cyborg said. “They already know this is the biggest fight in women’s MMA. I think I don’t have to ask it. They know I don’t choose opponents. They already know.”

The timing for a potential super-fight with Rousey couldn’t be more perfect, according to Justino, as all of the other elite 135-pound women already have dancing partners. If a bout with Rousey does fall through, ‘Cyborg’ and current women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate could potentially throw-down next:

“”The biggest fights will happen now, Holly Holm (vs. Valentina Shevchenko) and Miesha Tate (vs. Amanda Nunes). I think, probably, I’ll fight that biggest fight,” Cyborg said.

“We have to see what happens. We have to see who wants to fight me. Miesha Tate said she wants to fight me at 140. Let’s see. A lot of people like to say but no one signs the contract. I’m ready. Who my fans want to watch, I’ll fight and I’m ready.”

While it’s been well noted that ‘Cyborg’ despieses cutting weight bellow her usual home of 145-pounds, the Brazilian is still holding onto hope that the UFC will one day introduce a women’s featherweight division in the near future:

“When you think about, I say man, I don’t want,” Cyborg said. “When you really think, I don’t want because it’s really hard, really stressful. I love training,

I train a lot, but for 140 it’s worse. You have to run every day. I ran six miles in the morning, six miles at night, and train MMA and other arts, too. It’s a lot of work, a lot of work. … Man, it’s no easy.

George Lockhart is very good. I think I need some more time between fights at 140. I think 140 all the time is not good for my body.

I think I’m asking for this for a lot of years, for my division (in the UFC),” she continued. “They say they don’t have a lot of girls at 145. I would think they have a lot of girls.

But they say it’s hard to make one division of 145 for now. They opened for me at 140. I’m open for big fights and it would be my dream to make my division in the UFC.

It makes me sad that I don’t have my division, but they can make the biggest fights for all my fans. ESPN says I’m the number one pound for pound in women’s MMA, and I think if the UFC wants to invest in women’s MMA, I think I have to be in the UFC.”

You can check out Justino’s full interview here bellow: