Tag: ufc 208

The UFC just can’t seem to find a happy medium with women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg.

And there could be a distinct reason for that.

After finally winning a UFC title against Invicta bantamweight champion Tonya Evinger at July’s UFC 214, Cyborg repeatedly called out for a title fight against former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm, who fought Germaine de Randamie in the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight title fight, at December 30’s UFC 219.

However, according to Cyborg, that booking is seeming more and more unlikely due to the payday the UFC is offering her. She tweeted last night that a scheduled meeting with the UFC had been called off because they were offering her a downgrade in pay to fight Holm:

My meeting with the @UFC for next week has been canceled. They want to pay me less to fight @HollyHolm than I made to fight Tonya Evinger

— #UFC219 CyborgVHolm (@criscyborg) October 3, 2017

The issue is merely the latest in a long string of back-and-forth troubles between the UFC and Cyborg, which were seemingly remedied after she was hit with a potential USADA violation last year, of which she was exonerated yet still did not fight in the first UFC women’s 145-pound title bout in the main event of February’s UFC 208.

It seemed getting Cyborg to the octagon was becoming tougher by the day, but the two sides hashed things out enough to get her inside the Octagon at UFC 214, where she dominated a tough Evinger en route to a third-round TKO stoppage. The stage was certainly set for Cyborg to realize her potential as one of MMA’s biggest stars (and most controversial draws) against Holm, who is quite possibly the only woman ready and willing to fight, other than Cyborg, at featherweight right now.

But with fighter pay and treatment one of the most heated topics in MMA in the year following WME-IMG’s then-record $4.2 billion UFC purchase, a champion probably won’t take a pay cut to fight a bigger name than she did for her previous bout, especially considering she’s finally champion. We’ve only gotten Cyborg’s side of the story for now, and UFC 219, at least of this writing, isn’t shaping up to be quite as impactful a card as UFC 214, which featured the long-awaited return of Jon Jones, was.

That could all change, of course, but Cyborg’s accusation at her employer, if true, would seem like just another unnecessary hold-up in an era where the UFC is trying to nickel and dime their fighters to death – even their champions.

The post Cris Cyborg Blasts UFC For Offering Pay Downgrade appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.

Cris Cyborg is reportedly on par with all of the required steps of the UFC’s partnership with the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

After a report recently surfaced from Bloody Elbow stating that Cyborg had potentially run afoul of USADA after someone had called police on USADA testing agents in Thailand, where Cyborg has been training with Phuket Top Team, who had shown up to the gym to test the UFC women’s featherweight champ.

However, USADA issued a statement to MMA Fighting this week (Tues., September 26, 2017) that fully exonerated Cyborg from any confusion or wrongdoing after her sample was successfully collected and sent to a WADA-accredited lab in Tokyo:

“Ms. Justino fully complied with the sample collection process. From collection to delivery, the integrity of the sample was secured, and it is currently being analyzed by the WADA accredited lab in Tokyo. Athletes’ cooperation in providing a requested sample is critical to ensure all athletes’ right to safe and clean sport is protected.”

Apparently, the police had been called on the testing agents by workers at her hotel and Phuket Top Team front-desk employees. Phuket Top Team owner Boyd Clarke addressed the situation by explaining just why the police were called on the agents in a lengthy forum post on The Underground:

“Fake news aside, here’s the first hand on the spot happenings of the situation. As owner of Phuket Top Team I feel I should fill in some of the missing info. My Thai staff was made aware of several people believed to be “stalking” Cris cyborg, as they would not identify themselves.

We were told by our staff that 2 people checked into a hotel room next to cris and were acting strange by asking questions about them. Cyborg was placed in an exclusive location to provide her privacy while training at my gym.

Initially my staff thought the couple were just overly excited fans. At 6am those people knocked on the door of the of Cris’s bungalow and the hotel staff notified my office of the disturbance.The hotel staff told my front desk that they heard the people requesting a urine sample. In Thailand the only people who do this are police. Unable to contact Cris by phone My staff rang the local police to ask why they would send people to her residence.

The police stated they had no knowledge of any officers at that hotel, and sent a patrol car to investingate. It was after the police arrived that they discovered the pair was from Singapore.Speaking directly to Cris they learned that the testers where checked into the hotel to do their job of collecting a urine sample for testing and not on vacation.

The police further investigated the situation to discover that neither employee had a valid work permit and when questioned both individuals from Singapore failed to mention they were part of any international testing agency, instead informing the officers on site they were only in Phuket for Vacation. Allowing them to initially leave, the police later detained them upon reviewing paperwork completed during the testing. and later discovering that they were wearing uniforms and in the presence of work ID’s. Cris cyborg complied with the entire process, giving her sample as she was unaware of the issues with them not having a valid work permit until the test was completed and the local authorities arrived to investigate the situation.

The issue for the police was two part.

First The Singaporean collectors made false statements denying they were here working and to collect urine samples. In Thailand the country is big on saving “face” and having two Singaporeans lie about their purpose on the island did not sit well with them.

Second since they were here working without a permit they did not provide the country with the proper taxes for conducting business in Thailand.

To further escalate the situation one of the testers attempted to offer money to the Thai police in exchange for them to be let go without incident.Cris was uninvolved in the police and immigration issues other than providing answers to the police when questioned.

The entire process was started by the hotel staff notifying my front desk of a disturbance at our VIP guests residence and was further escalated by the false statements made to the police by the testing agency.

The post USADA Clears Cyborg Following Thailand Police Confusion appeared first on LowKickMMA.com.