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Cat Zingano was recently released from her Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contract after spending the last six years and seven fights of her professional mixed martial arts (MMA) career with the promotion.
While details as to why “Alpha” was let go were sparse, ESPN’s Ariel Helwani got the scoop directly from the horses mouth. Indeed, Zingano revealed that the split was mutual due to a special project she is currently working on.
“I didn’t want to take the ultimatum this time,” Zingano said in her statement. “So I guess you can say it was mutual. I had a project that was very, very important to me, and to the MMA community and fans, and I needed to put me, my son, my training and that first before I had anything to give to the UFC,” she added. Still, Cat made it clear that her fighting days are from from over.
“It’s shitty timing, but it happens, and I’m still a fighter and ready to fuck shit up.”
On the bright side, there will be some suitors who wouldn’t mind take a chance on Zingano, though her record with UFC is less than stellar at 3-4. Still, she does have some pretty big wins on her resume, including defeating Miesha Tate in her Octagon debut way back in 2013.
Plus, Zingano is the only person to ever defeat current women’s champ-champ, Amanda Nunes, inside the Octagon, defeating her via technical knockout at UFC 178 back in 2014.
After starting her MMA career at 9-0, Cat suffered three straight loses, including getting submitted by former women’s Bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey, in just 14 seconds. In her last five fights, Cat is 1-4 and was last seen coming up short against Megan Anderson at UFC 232 thanks to an unfortunate eye injury.