Cris Cyborg may end up suspended or fired after assaulting another fighter at the UFC Athlete Retreat, but she has an alternate idea for the promotion to consider.
The UFC is still trying to decide what to do about Cris Cyborg after she lost her cool and punched fellow fighter Angela Magana at last weekend’s UFC Athlete Retreat. Cyborg is currently facing charges of battery over the assault, and may face a suspension for violating the UFC’s code of conduct. But she has other ideas, like a mini women’s featherweight tournament to decide who coaches the upcoming all-female Ultimate Fighter 26.
#tuf25 let’s bring in a featherweight tournament to determine @UltimateFighter @ufc coaches! @MeganA_mma @CatZingano @DandoisCindy pic.twitter.com/JFgZ7IbXYu
— #UFC214 #LetsGoChamp (@criscyborg) May 24, 2017
Cris is just full of these helpful suggestions. For example, she’s spent the last month or so suggesting the UFC book her in her hometown of Anaheim for UFC 214. Since the UFC hasn’t bothered to sign anyone for their 145 pound division, she also suggested current Invicta featherweight champ Megan Anderson as an opponent.
We’re not super sure exactly why the UFC seems so reluctant to go ahead with this pretty reasonable sounding plan, but it may have to with Cris having a reputation in the organization as a major pain in the ass to deal with. She refused to go along with the UFC’s hastily made plans to fight for the inaugural 145 pound title at UFC 208 because her organs were on the verge of shutting down from past weight cuts, and while that’s a pretty valid reason not to take a fight, she then went on to trash the UFC for holding the title fight anyways.
It’s that sort of attitude that doesn’t seem to be winning her many fans in upper management. Even the past few weeks of campaigning for a fight at UFC 214 were done in a less than constructive manner, calling the UFC out repeatedly for slights real and imagined, noting she’s done with her UFC contract in October, and making other statements that sound like she’s already one foot out the organization’s door.
Following her punch up incident with Magana, she refused to apologize and instead pointed to a campaign of bullying from the UFC that ran from UFC president Dana White down to the fighters.
Dear @wme @ufc there needs to be an internal procedure to deal with this type of continued sexual harassment pic.twitter.com/4gbSY2k8oq
— #UFC214 #LetsGoChamp (@criscyborg) May 23, 2017
@WME @ufc pic.twitter.com/FzQ8MTlsFe
— #UFC214 #LetsGoChamp (@criscyborg) May 24, 2017
So now you’re probably starting to understand why the UFC may not be super interested in working with Cyborg. These days it sounds like she may be building a case for suing the company rather than actually trying to work anything out.
Not that the UFC is completely innocent here … they have a certain laissez-faire attitude towards communicating with their fighters that’s causing an increased amount of unnecessary public blow outs involving their big names. But at this point, Cyborg may be firmly off their list of partners to work with and stuck on the outside with other malcontents like the Diaz brothers and Al Iaquinta.