Tag: Cyborg Cris Cyborg vs. Yana Kunitskaya

Cris Cyborg Reacts To Ronda Rousey’s Latest Media Comments

She may essentially be retired from MMA, but Ronda Rousey is still drawing the attention of the sport’s top female fighter. Rousey made a successful WWE pro-wrestling debut at April’s WrestleMania 34 and in the days since, she’s seemingly opened up about a litany of topics in interviews. The hottest topic, of course, is her […]

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She may essentially be retired from MMA, but Ronda Rousey is still drawing the attention of the sport’s top female fighter.

Rousey made a successful WWE pro-wrestling debut at April’s WrestleMania 34 and in the days since, she’s seemingly opened up about a litany of topics in interviews.

The hottest topic, of course, is her precipitous MMA downfall brought by losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes and how she’s chosen to deal with it. The legendary former UFC women’s bantamweight champion recently admitted she never learned how to lose, and that she was tired of fighting but felt obligated to carry the division she made famous. But a more controversial statement also came from the “Rowdy” one when she said that ‘hearing her speak was a privilege’ and one the media had abused.

The words have drawn the ire of prominent women’s MMA names like Miesha Tate and even longtime Rousey rival Cris Cyborg, who told EsNews (via MMA Junkie) that considering what she’s been through, she hoped Rousey was respectful to people:

“I think I don’t need to tell her anything. I think life has taught her a lot of things. I think a lot of things happened through her life and her career. I hope she’s learned something from that. Be humble and respect people. I think this is most important.”

An ambiguous well-wishing to be sure, yet Cyborg followed it up with a more forceful suggestion that if Rousey was done fighting, she was running away from her issues and therefore nothing had changed:

“I don’t know her in person. I think if she’s not coming back to fight and she’s running away, that’s not going to change anything. But I’m not here to judge anybody.”

“Rowdy” vs. Cyborg was long considered the top women’s fight the UFC could book but after years of back-and-forth fluff involving Rousey forcing Cyborg to cut down to an unattainable 135 pounds allegedly due to her history with performance-enhancing drugs, it fizzled before it ever took off the ground. The fight was never really close to actually happening, and that may be a good thing considering Rousey’s problems with elite strikers in her final fights.

Cyborg has moved on to her rightful spot as the dominant UFC women’s featherweight champion, and she’s also passed Rousey as the greatest women’s combatant in MMA history.

Despite that fact, however, we may never hear Cyborg’s opinions of Rousey stop, especially if the former champion continues to suggest it’s a privilege for the media to hear her speak.

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UFC Rankings Update: Brian Ortega Surpasses Jose Aldo After Huge Knockout

The UFC held their third pay-per-view (PPV) event of the year with last weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and several pivotal rankings changes resulted. The most notable shift undoubtedly went to surging featherweight contender Brian Ortega, who overtook the No. 1 spot at 145 pounds for […]

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The UFC held their third pay-per-view (PPV) event of the year with last weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and several pivotal rankings changes resulted.

The most notable shift undoubtedly went to surging featherweight contender Brian Ortega, who overtook the No. 1 spot at 145 pounds for his scintillating knockout of UFC great Frankie Edgar.

Previously ranked at No. 3 following his submission of Cub Swanson, Ortega pushed longtime former champion Jose Aldo out of the top spot, dropping him to No. 2 and Edgar to No. 3. The previously No. 3-ranked ‘T-City’ filled in for injured champion Max Holloway against Edgar at UFC 222, and will now move on to a title bout with “Blessed” according to UFC president Dana White.

In other rankings movement, former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski rose two spots after a surprisingly wrestling-focused win over Stefan Struve on the main card. Struve fell two spots to No. 12. Debuting lightweight Alexander Hernandez stormed on to the Top 15 with his explosive first-round knockout over previous No. 12 Beneil Dariush, debuting at No. 13 while allowing Anthony Pettis to rise to 12 and dropping Dariush to 15.

John Dodson rose up a spot to No. 7 at bantamweight after a close win over Pedro Munhoz, and Bryan Caraway dropped two spots to No. 9 after a split decision loss to Cody Stamann, who debuted on the 135-pound rankings at No. 12. Finally, at women’s bantamweight, rising contender Ketlen Vieira moved up a spot to No. 4 after her decision win over No. 6 Cat Zingano while writers continue to rank Ronda Rousey, even though she fell two spots, despite her clearly being a WWE-employed pro wrestler.

Here are the fully updated rankings from the official UFC website:

POUND-FOR-POUND
1 Demetrious Johnson
2 Conor McGregor
3 Daniel Cormier
4 Stipe Miocic
5 Max Holloway
6 Georges St-Pierre
7 TJ Dillashaw
8 Tyron Woodley
9 Cris Cyborg
10 Tony Ferguson
11 Robert Whittaker
12 Khabib Nurmagomedov +2
12 Cody Garbrandt
14 Amanda Nunes -1
15 Joanna Jedrzejczyk

FLYWEIGHT
Champion : Demetrious Johnson
1 Joseph Benavidez
2 Henry Cejudo
3 Ray Borg
4 Jussier Formiga
5 Sergio Pettis
6 Wilson Reis
7 Brandon Moreno
8 Ben Nguyen
9 Dustin Ortiz
10 John Moraga
11 Matheus Nicolau
12 Tim Elliott
13 Alexandre Pantoja
14 Deiveson Figueiredo
15 Magomed Bibulatov

BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion : TJ Dillashaw
1 Cody Garbrandt
2 Dominick Cruz
3 Raphael Assuncao
4 Jimmie Rivera
5 Marlon Moraes
6 John Lineker
7 John Dodson +1
8 Aljamain Sterling +1
9 Bryan Caraway -2
10 Pedro Munhoz
11 Rob Font
12 Cody Stamann *NR
13 Thomas Almeida -1
14 Brett Johns -1
15 Eddie Wineland -1

FEATHERWEIGHT
Champion : Max Holloway
1 Brian Ortega +2
2 Jose Aldo -1
3 Frankie Edgar -1
4 Cub Swanson
5 Jeremy Stephens
6 Josh Emmett
7 Ricardo Lamas
8 Chan Sung Jung
9 Darren Elkins
10 Yair Rodriguez
11 Renato Moicano
12 Mirsad Bektic
13 Calvin Kattar +1
14 Dooho Choi -1
15 Myles Jury

LIGHTWEIGHT
Champion : Conor McGregor
1 Tony Ferguson (Interim Champion)
2 Khabib Nurmagomedov
3 Eddie Alvarez
4 Edson Barboza
5 Dustin Poirier
6 Justin Gaethje
7 Kevin Lee
8 Nate Diaz
9 Michael Chiesa
10 Al Iaquinta
11 James Vick
12 Anthony Pettis +1
13 Alexander Hernandez *NR
14 Evan Dunham
15 Beneil Dariush -3

WELTERWEIGHT
Champion : Tyron Woodley
1 Stephen Thompson
2 Rafael Dos Anjos
3 Colby Covington
4 Robbie Lawler
5 Demian Maia
6 Jorge Masvidal
7 Darren Till
8 Kamaru Usman
9 Neil Magny
10 Santiago Ponzinibbio
11 Donald Cerrone
12 Carlos Condit
13 Gunnar Nelson
14 Dong Hyun Kim
15 Leon Edwards

MIDDLEWEIGHT
Champion : Robert Whittaker
1 Yoel Romero
2 Jacare Souza
3 Luke Rockhold
4 Chris Weidman
5 Kelvin Gastelum
6 Michael Bisping
7 Derek Brunson
8 David Branch
9 Uriah Hall
10 Vitor Belfort
11 Thiago Santos
12 Lyoto Machida
13 Krzysztof Jotko
14 Paulo Costa
15 Brad Tavares

LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion : Daniel Cormier
1 Alexander Gustafsson
2 Volkan Oezdemir
3 Glover Teixeira
4 Jimi Manuwa
5 Ilir Latifi
6 Ovince Saint Preux
7 Mauricio Rua
8 Misha Cirkunov
9 Corey Anderson
10 Patrick Cummins
11 Jan Blachowicz
12 Tyson Pedro
13 Gadzhimurad Antigulov
14 Gian Villante
15 Jordan Johnson *NR

HEAVYWEIGHT
Champion : Stipe Miocic
1 Francis Ngannou
2 Alistair Overeem
3 Fabricio Werdum
4 Cain Velasquez
5 Curtis Blaydes
6 Derrick Lewis
6 Mark Hunt
8 Alexander Volkov
9 Marcin Tybura
10 Andrei Arlovski +2
11 Aleksei Oleinik
12 Stefan Struve -2
13 Junior Albini -1
14 Tai Tuivasa -1
15 Shamil Abdurakhimov *NR

WOMEN’S STRAWWEIGHT
Champion : Rose Namajunas
1 Joanna Jedrzejczyk
2 Jessica Andrade
3 Claudia Gadelha
4 Karolina Kowalkiewicz
5 Tecia Torres
6 Carla Esparza
7 Michelle Waterson
8 Felice Herrig
9 Cynthia Calvillo
10 Alexa Grasso
11 Cortney Casey +1
12 Randa Markos -1
13 Joanne Calderwood
14 Tatiana Suarez
15 Nina Ansaroff

WOMEN’S FLYWEIGHT
Champion : Nicco Montano
1 Valentina Shevchenko
2 Sijara Eubanks
3 Lauren Murphy
4 Alexis Davis
5 Roxanne Modafferi
6 Barb Honchak
7 Liz Carmouche
8 Katlyn Chookagian
9 Jessica-Rose Clark
10 Jessica Eye
11 Montana De La Rosa
12 Rachael Ostovich
13 Mara Romero Borella
14 Paige VanZant
15 Shana Dobson

WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT
Champion : Amanda Nunes
1 Holly Holm
2 Raquel Pennington
3 Julianna Pena
4 Ketlen Vieira +1
5 Germaine de Randamie -1
6 Cat Zingano
7 Marion Reneau
8 Sara McMann
9 Bethe Correia
10 Leslie Smith -1
11 Aspen Ladd +1
12 Lucie Pudilova +1
13 Ronda Rousey -2
14 Irene Aldana
15 Sarah Moras

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Cyborg vs. Yana Kunitskaya Full Fight Video Highlights

Women’s featherweight champion Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino stepped up on short notice to battle Invicta FC bantamweight champ Yana Kunitskaya in the main event of last night’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was another day at the office for the most dominant fighter in women’s MMA, but […]

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Women’s featherweight champion Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Justino stepped up on short notice to battle Invicta FC bantamweight champ Yana Kunitskaya in the main event of last night’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It was another day at the office for the most dominant fighter in women’s MMA, but not after some very brief early adversity. At the sound of the bell, Cyborg landed a big right hand but was surprisingly taken down by her opponent:

But Kunitskaya couldn’t keep Cyborg down, and once the Brazilian began to open up in the striking, there was precious little time left for the Invicta FC vet:

Cyborg extended her unprecedented unbeaten streak to an unheard-of 21 fights while simultaneously further etching herself into UFC history now.

What’s next for the most decorated female in the history of MMA?

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UFC 222 Post-Fight Press Conference

This evening’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, delivered in every sense of the term, with three hyped potential future stars picking up victories capped off by a classic win from an all-time great champion. In the main event, women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg stopped Yana Kunitskaya after […]

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This evening’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, delivered in every sense of the term, with three hyped potential future stars picking up victories capped off by a classic win from an all-time great champion.

In the main event, women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg stopped Yana Kunitskaya after some early adversity in the grappling game, eventually bludgeoning the Invicta FC bantamweight champ with a trademark onslaught of demolishing blows.

The co-main event saw the rise of a featherweight title contender after Brian Ortega amazingly knocked out Frankie Edgar to become the first fighter to finish “The Answer.” In other action, surging bantamweight Sean O’Malley picked up a win while injured and gave a post-fight interview to Joe Rogan from the ground.

All in all, a wild night from Sin City. Watch the post-fight press conference streaming live shortly after the main card right here:

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Quote: Cris Cyborg Doesn’t Have Knockout Power

She may be facing by far the toughest test of her MMA career when she meets Cris Cyborg in the main event of this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Yana Kunitskaya says she isn’t feeling pressure. Speaking up during an interview with MMAJunkie, the […]

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She may be facing by far the toughest test of her MMA career when she meets Cris Cyborg in the main event of this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, but Yana Kunitskaya says she isn’t feeling pressure.

Speaking up during an interview with MMAJunkie, the Jackson-Wink product said she watched Cyborg throughout her five-round victory over Holly Holm at December’s UFC 219 and noticed holes in the bruising Brazilian’s game ‘everywhere’:

“I don’t feel any pressure. Everyone has weaknesses, and her last fight with Holly (Holm), it was five rounds, and it showed a lot. I was getting ready for everything and find holes everywhere – in stand-up and the ground in wrestling. I’m trying to get ready for everything.”

After winning the vacant Invicta FC bantamweight title last year, Kunitskaya was originally set to make her UFC debut against a much less high-profile opponent, but when Max Holloway was forced out of his scheduled UFC 222 main event with Frankie Edgar, the chance to meet Cyborg on short notice arose.

It was obviously an opportunity she couldn’t pass up, one that she revealed she’d been dreaming about ever since Cyborg was dominating her opponents in Strikeforce:

“Since she started fighting in Strikeforce (I’ve been thinking about it),” Kunitskaya said. “I wanted to fight in Strikeforce, but I couldn’t get a visa, an American visa. After she was fighting in Invicta and then in UFC. All my career I was thinking about this; one day I would fight her. I’m happy this is happening in big show in the UFC, and it’s a good chance for me.”

The bout came to fruition in a somewhat haphazard manner, but Kunitskaya said she was already training so it didn’t affect her camp as much. With dates, times, and opponents constantly shifting, she said she was pleased to finally get the biggest opponent possible:

“I was in my camp for a couple months and was getting ready, and the UFC kept changing everything for me,” Kunitskaya said. “Dates, weight class, girls. So I was just training very hard and was ready for any moment. Three weeks before they told me Cris Cyborg, so I was excited and kept training hard.”

The excitement soon waned, however, and she knew she would be in for the biggest challenge of her athletic career. But even though she believes Cyborg is a strong fighter, perhaps her claimed lack of intimidation comes in the form of her belief that Cyborg doesn’t have real knockout power:

“I know that she’s strong, but I don’t think she has that strong of knockout power,” Kunitskaya said. “She has no clean knockouts where girls go down, like Holly (Holm) have. But yes, she’s very tough. She finishes all the fights by technical knockout. I think I’m strong, too, strong enough to compare with her.”

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Frankie Edgar Reacts To Conor McGregor’s UFC 222 Fight Claims

Last week, absent UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor ‘confirmed’ his MMA return with the mere flick of an Instagram post before taking it a step further and claiming he even offered to fill in for featherweight champ Max Holloway against Frankie Edgar at this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from Las Vegas. Even […]

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Last week, absent UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor ‘confirmed’ his MMA return with the mere flick of an Instagram post before taking it a step further and claiming he even offered to fill in for featherweight champ Max Holloway against Frankie Edgar at this weekend’s (Sat., March 3, 2018) UFC 222 from Las Vegas.

Even though the potentially monstrous comeback fight never came close to materializing due to the UFC saying they didn’t have enough time to capitalize, the claim understandably set a big news-starved MMA world (with much of it due to ‘The Notorious” hiatus) afire for at least one night.

Both Edgar’s manager Ali Abdel-Aziz and boxing coach Mark Henry were quick to fire back at McGregor with seething responses to the outlandish news, but “The Answer” stayed relatively mum on the dream match-up. Until now, that is, as the former lightweight champ spoke up about the never-to-be fight to Ariel Helwani on today’s episode of The MMA Hour. The New Jersey ironman said he awoke to see rumors of it online, but that was the fist he had heard of it:

“I woke up from a nap and I saw it on Twitter. That’s the first I heard of it.”

Apparently, word later arrived that McGregor did offer to fight at UFC 222, but wanted it to be for a never-before-contested 165-pound belt, something Edgar called ridiculous considering McGregor was yet to defend either his lightweight or featherweight belt:

“I mean, come on, there is no 165-pound belt. You know what I’m saying? I want to fight on the moon. You know what I mean? Come on.

“He doesn’t want to defend his own belt. What, he wants to fight me? I mean, hey, that’d be great. That’d be great for me. Let’s be real. I’m not scared to fight anybody. Come on, I’ve been doing this too long to be scared to fight anybody. I mean, if anything, that would be very good for me, to fight Conor McGregor.”

Mandatory Credit: Steve Flynn-USA TODAY Sports

And while Edgar would love to face McGregor and the payday he brings in the Octagon, he didn’t believe it was close to true because Dana White didn’t call him – even if he would fight McGregor at any weight:

“I would’ve fought him in any weight class, to be honest with you.

“I think if it was real, Dana would’ve called me personally. He’s done it before. With something like that, Dana would’ve called me personally, and he didn’t, so I have to think that it wasn’t real.”

To “The Answer” – and many others – McGregor was simply keeping his name in the news, something he does perhaps better than any fighter other than his forever-rival Floyd Mayweather.

With that taken into consideration, Edgar said he wouldn’t let the Irishman get him sidetracked. He has his hands full with Ortega – a hungry, rising contender who is active in the UFC unlike ‘The Notorious’:

“I don’t know, I think Conor’s just being Conor, man. He’s the best at it, right? He’s the best at making news and staying relevant. I don’t mean relevant, he’s the most popular guy in our sport, this and that, but staying in the news cycle. He does it better than anybody, except maybe Floyd Mayweather.

“I’m not surprised by it, and I’m not getting sidetracked by it because it doesn’t matter,” Edgar added. “It’s non-news to me. Because the news is I’m fighting a guy who fights in the UFC right now, Brian Ortega.”

Despite the drama, Edgar doesn’t believe he and McGregor will ever fight because of the opportunities they’ve had to do so when McGregor was actually at featherweight and it didn’t happen.

So ‘The Answer’ put the talk about the unlikely payday with McGregor aside because he is aware of the dangerous challenge he has waiting in only five days:

“If we’re going to fight, we’ll fight. But I doubt it,” Edgar said. “I really don’t think we’ll ever cross paths. I really don’t. … We’ve had many times it could’ve been real, and it just never materialized. And if it didn’t materialize then, I just don’t see why would it happen now.

“I’m putting it totally aside, because it’s easy with this whole Conor news and Max, it’s easy to get sidetracked and think about Max, think about Conor,” Edgar said. “I’ve got to focus on Ortega, man. It’s a dangerous fight. Everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s a risky fight,’ and they’re right. I’m putting a lot of the line and that’s my focus.”

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