On July 29, 2017, Cris Cyborg Justino will finally get the chance to fight for a UFC title when she takes on reigning Invicta FC bantamweight champion Tony Evinger for the vacant UFC women’s featherweight strap at UFC 214 from Anaheim, California.
Despite her success through two UFC bouts, Cyborg’s relationship with the promotion hasn’t gone as well as she had planned. UFC President Dana White recently admitted that he has made some ‘mistakes’ when dealing with Cyborg, which gave the Brazilian slugger hope that the situation could ‘change’:
“I hope it’s gonna change,” Cyborg said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. “The last interview, Dana White said he did a lot of mistakes with Cyborg, maybe we can work together. I love my job. If my boss and my company loves working with me, we’re gonna have a lot of success together.
“I accepted that. Let’s see what’s gonna happen after that,” she continued. “Let’s see if not going to be just words, but if the practice in business is gonna change. We just have to work together. If you want to work together, for sure we can make a lot of money together. But we need to work together. After this interview, I think he opened the door for getting better.”
With her contract expiring in October, we could see Cyborg leave the world’s largest mixed martial arts promotion if conditions don’t improve, although she claims that she is currently only focused on her upcoming title fight:
“I’m gonna fight for the belt now, and then if I get the belt, this is gonna hold me one year, probably have a couple of fights too,” she said. “I really have to think about it. If the UFC is gonna work with me, how we’re gonna work together. If I’m happy there, if they show respect for me… let’s wait and just wants to make everybody happy, all my fans happy. I think everybody is gonna watch my fight because they waited so long for that day, let’s see after. I think after, when we work together and make money together, it changes.
“I know I have a lot of doors open for me if this doesn’t happen, but all my focus is my fight in the end of the month and then we see what’s going to happen. I hope everything will be okay.”
Love or hate her, there’s no denying that Cyborg is one of the most polarizing and controversial stars in all of the sport, and fostering a relationship with her, especially in the absence of her onetime media rival Ronda Rousey, can only behoove a UFC in need of legitimately bankable pay-per-view (PPV) stars.
Based on the sheer amount of coverage and speculation for her awaited UFC 214 return alone, it’s become clear that Cyborg is one of their biggest and most dependable names, and improving their treatment of her, which could be described as ‘rough’ in the past, will only serve to gain them what they desire most – numbers.
What do you make of Cyborg’s most recent comments?
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