Cris “Cyborg” Justino looks to be departing the cage for the ring in her next venture.
In 2022, the Curitiba, Brazil native proudly wears her label of “grand slam” MMA champion, having won titles in every major organization she’s fought for. While notorious for her MMA career, Cyborg has also sought out challenges in other variations of combat sports such as grappling and Muay Thai, most recently in the early 2010s.
Now having won in all five of her Bellator appearances to this point, the champion has announced that she’s officially a free agent but remains in an offer period that’s soon to be over. Among the negotiations had, Cyborg is leaning towards trying her hands in the boxing world, receiving a match offer with the opponent and date, it’s just a matter of finalizing things on paper.
“My team already received the contract, we’ve been back and forth working on the contract, I believe soon, we’ll finish and I’ll sign,” Cyborg said on The Catch-Up. “Then you guys are gonna know who and where is gonna be my next fight. I’m very excited to do my first fight in boxing. Very, very excited. It’s one of my dreams.”
Currently the Bellator women’s featherweight champion, Cyborg has been one of the most dominant forces in all of MMA since arriving on the scene in 2005. It wasn’t long after until she made her presence truly felt in Strikeforce, defeating Gina Carano in one of the sport’s most pivotal moments to become the inaugural champion of her weight class for the promotion.
The most logical next step for Cyborg in her primary fighting field has seemed to be a matchup with the undefeated lightweight destroyer, Kayla Harrison, who is on her way to a third consecutive PFL title.
PFL and Harrison have made it no secret regarding their willingness and desire to make the fight happen by any means necessary. Bellator has also shown interest in the form of offering Harrison a contract and the Cyborg title fight for her promotional debut during her own free agency earlier this year. PFL, however, prevented it by matching the contract, and now as recently as last week, CEO Peter Murray shared that there has already been “outreach” to the 37-year-old.
“We’ve never had any talks with PFL,” Cyborg said. “They never talk about this fight. I know it’s a lot of talks on the internet to make this fight happen with [Harrison], two different ways, but I’ve never had the opportunity to talk about anything.
“I’ve been talking to [Bellator President] Scott Coker about boxing fights, we’ve talked about how being co-promoters would be really nice. I really love working with Scott Coker and if we have the opportunity to make this fight happen and continue to be with Scott, that would be amazing, co-promote the event, and I think make the fight happen.”
Despite all of the hurdles that continue to pop up to make the possible Cyborg-Harrison showdown a reality, each side — for the most part — is making it clear that they do at least want it to happen some way and somehow.
“You see [Harrison’s manager] Ali [Abdelaziz] already been saying like Kayla didn’t sell pay-per-views, it’s not interesting,” Cyborg said. “But I believe the promoters are pushing for the fight to happen but her own manager [isn’t]. I think a lot of things have to change if they really want this fight to happen.
“I’m open to the best fight for my fans.”
WOW PFL Blowing Smoke imo
There’s been talk of Cyborg vs. Katie Taylor for a while. Maybe that’s going to happen. Not much chance of Cyborg winning, but it will very likely be a bigger payday.
She can rage-bully the lower ranked fighters but against the top fighters, she’d have mixed success at best.
ok sure sure gif
Butterflies flutter in Cris Cyborg’s stomach this week.
It’s not that the Bellator MMA featherweight champion is nervous, in her own assessment, ahead of her professional boxing debut Sunday in her hometown of Curitiba, Brazil, where she will face veteran Simone Silva. Excited: That’s more like it.
“It’s different, but it’s still fighting. It’s still a fight,” the 37-year-old GOAT and pioneer of women’s mixed martial arts told The Post this week via Zoom. “I know it’s a different sport. I prepared very [well]. I feel ready.”
For well over a decade, Cyborg has been either No. 1 or 2 in the world at 145 pounds in MMA. And for years, she — like so many successful mixed martial artists — has toyed with the idea of trying her hands at boxing. At last, the stars aligned for her to chase another dream of hers as she competes at 154 pounds.
That difference in weight already has Cyborg feeling much better than is typical for fight week, given she won’t have to cut an extra nine pounds.
Cyborg says she’s motivated to give her fans the fights they want to see. And at this point, those fans are calling as loudly as they can for her to face unbeaten PFL lightweight champion and two-time Olympic gold medal-winning judoka Kayla Harrison. It’s a bout Harrison has called for just as loudly and, reportedly, nearly came together during Harrison’s free agency period earlier this year before PFL exercised its right to match a Bellator contract offer.
The two women, who alongside Amanda Nunes are considered the world’s best at 145 pounds and up, have traded words on social media for years, but Cyborg deferred this week on the subject of the two facing off, at least while she’s got boxing business to handle.
“Let’s see after this fight,” said Cyborg of potentially facing Harrison. “I don’t like to think about the future.”
TODAY
Bellator Women’s Featherweight Champion Cris Cyborg picked up her second professional boxing win earlier this month.
Cyborg defeated Gabrielle Holloway via unanimous decision. Now, the MMA legend is looking ahead to 2023 with her eyes on both boxing and defending her Bellator title.
The Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt has not fought in Bellator since her Bellator 279 title defense against Arlene Blencowe. Cyborg won the fight via unanimous decision despite having a point deducted for an illegal knee in the first round.
In a recent interview with MiddleEasy, Cyborg discussed her most likely next opponent: Cat Zingano.
Cat Zingano is currently on a three-fight winning streak, most recently defeating Pam Sorenson at Bellator 282 in June. The former UFC Bantamweight Championship contender has never stepped into the cage with Cris Cyborg before.
Cris Cyborg On When The Zingano Fight Might Happen
In a spot of bad news for those hoping to see an imminent Cyborg Bellator return, the champ does not see the Zingano fight happening before summer 2023. This means more than a year will have passed between defenses of the Bellator Women’s Featherweight Championship.
“I believe our next fight’s going to be summer,” Cris Cyborg revealed. “She’s [Zingano] the next one in line for the title, and we were supposed to fight before but you know I always think it’s a perfect time, you know. I’m ready, and I believe it’s gonna be summer.”
In the same interview, Cyborg discussed additional potential fights in 2023, including a boxing bout with Undisputed Women’s Lightweight Champion Katie Taylor and an MMA bout former PFL Women’s Lightweight Champion Kayla Harrison.
With all of this in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the long-awaited Cyborg/Zingano showdown may have to wait that much longer.
Sara McMann is making two big moves with her mixed martial arts (MMA) career in 2023.
It was announced yesterday (Tues., Dec. 28, 2022) that the one-time Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight title challenger has officially signed with Bellator MMA and will compete in the Featherweight division. McMann has been a model of consistency making 135 pounds over the course of all but one (a short notice mutually agreed upon 140-pound Catchweight) of her 19 fights. Ready to test herself at 145 pounds, the change in divisions was ultimately the deciding factor on how she’d end her free agency period.
“[It was] whether or not I wanted to move up to Featherweight,” McMann told MMA Mania. “While I was in the UFC, I had debated it, too. It’s not that I can’t make 135 because obviously, I can, every time. But the longer you make the weight class and a cut, the more I feel like your body kind of starts to resist you a little bit. It doesn’t want to be too lean. It starts to get a little bit more difficult to get your body to cooperate and that’s why you see people who previously made weight without a problem, it gets progressively harder.”
Weight cutting has never been an issue throughout McMann’s overall professional combat sports career. A wrestler of the highest caliber, winning silver in the Olympics, McMann, 42, consistently stays in shape out of fight camps and will only need to cut roughly two to three pounds for her upcoming Featherweight future. Ultimately, the end goal will be to capture her first MMA title, defeating the reigning champion, Cris “Cyborg” Justino.
“I think I match up really well,” McMann said of Cyborg. “I’ve always preferred people who are well-rounded, but their preference is striking because they’re a little easier to take down. They just stand up a little bit taller so when you’re committing to your strikes, it’s the scariest time to shoot, but it’s also the easiest. You’re committing your weight forward, so planted, and that’s exactly what we look for whenever we’re taking people down; planted feet.
“I’ve wrestled at 143 [pounds], so I’m not worried about the size because she has to make 145,” she continued. “So, we can only gain so much after that, and I know she has like a super strenuous weight cut so that will also favor me in later rounds rather than her. I respect her in all the areas and I don’t think one area will be easier than the other, but I feel like my wrestling and my jiu-jitsu and top position is really, really strong against anybody in the world
The timing comes perfectly for Cyborg and the division as she’s recently fought twice in boxing while playing out her own MMA free agency. Still officially the Bellator titleholder, however, all expectations are for her to return and defend her title in the first half of 2023.
McMann aims to make her promotional debut around March 2023 when she can begin to build her case for challenging one of the sport’s all-time greats.
“I don’t know what they need to one, market it well, and two, I don’t want to come in and step on any toes or skip any lines. I like to do things the right way,” McMann said. “So, showing that I deserve a title shot, showing that I’m the best contender, is really important to me, too. I don’t mind if I have one of two fights before that happens. That seems reasonable to me because it’s a new weight class so I kind of do feel like I have to prove a little bit — not a ton. Like yeah, I do belong in this weight class and I can put my money where my mouth is and that I can go out there and beat girls that are my size or a little bit bigger than me.”