Ronda Rousey talked about Cris Cyborg a whole lot but never signed on the dotted line to fight her. Is something similar going to happen with Kayla Harrison?
Cris Cyborg has been around the block a few times in this MMA biz, having started her professional fighting career back in 2005. So she’s seen it all, and right now, this Kayla Harrison thing? It looks familiar. It reminds her of that Ronda Rousey thing.
“I believe it like this: Kayla is just doing like Ronda Rousey in the beginning, what they were doing,” Cyborg said in an interview with MMA Junkie. “I was the champion in Strikeforce, and everyone started talking about me because people didn’t know who she is at the time. I think she just followed the things like Ronda did in the beginning. She’s just doing the beginning, too.”
Left unspoken was the fact that for all the talk from Ronda, no fight ever materialized. Rousey and the UFC insisted the bout go down at 135 pounds, while Cyborg was unable to drop below 140. There’s no shortage of trash talk on Ronda’s part when it came to Cyborg, but that superfight slipped through our fingers like Silva vs. GSP or Lesnar vs. Emelianenko.
For now Cyborg isn’t getting her hopes up, and why would she given all signs point to Harrison returning to the PFL, where the paper-thin women’s featherweight division nearly guarantees her another million dollar season.
“I don’t think that she’s gonna leave the PFL. If she left the PFL, then she would be welcomed in Bellator and we can make the fight happen,” Cyborg said. “I just feel like for some reason, I don’t think she’s gonna leave there, but she’s searching online. Let’s see what’s gonna happen. It will be a great fight.”
But unlike the UFC, Bellator is always down to work with other promotions. So if the PFL and Harrison want dat smoke….
“Even if she stayed in PFL we can make it happen, cross promotion,” Cyborg said. “I believe this fight can happen like boxing, have the A-side and the B-side. She’s been fighting for two years on ESPN, but she has (38,000) followers. I don’t think she’s touched the fans a lot. This fight can happen anytime with an A- and B-side. It can be great.”
As for Harrison, she sounds way more game than Rousey ever did. And she doesn’t even see Cyborg as the real monster at 145 pounds.
“I think right now the fight is Cyborg, you know,” Harrison said in a recent interview with MMA Fighting. “I think Amanda is the greatest of all time for a reason. I think to get to that point I still have some, you know, I still have to continue to climb and I think Cyborg is a step on that ladder, you know…for me again she’s also one of the greatest fighters of all time so no she’s no slouch and for me, it would be an honor to share the cage with her.”
What do you think, Maniacs? We gonna see Harrison vs. Cyborg in 2022, or (as Cyborg predicts) is this all just talk?