UFC featherweight champ Cris Cyborg discusses options in other promotions

UFC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg has not fought since her first-round mauling of Yana Kunitskaya in March. Since then, she’s been angling for a fight with women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, but the fight still hasn’t come together, and it doesn’t seem like it will until at least December.

To say that Cris Cyborg is getting tired of waiting would be an understatement.

Speaking on MMA Tonight on SiriusXM Fight Nation, Cyborg shared her frustration which what she referred to as political matchmaking on the UFC’s behalf.

“For me to wait for a fight for nine months, I’m not getting paid since this last fight against Yana Kunitskaya,” she said (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I don’t think it’s fair to wait for nine months to fight. I can fight! I don’t have any injuries. I’m healthy, I can fight, and just because Amanda isn’t ready.

“I would like to fight before,” she continued. “I would like to fight her but if she’s not ready, if she cannot fight now, I would like to fight before. Or if they want me to sit down nine months, I think it has to be worth it.”

“Before Dana White gave the belt to Ronda, I was already the champion in my division, 145, and I think all my fans know what I deal with every day. Like with Ronda or other fights, it’s all politics. I’m the champion a long time, 12 years undefeated, and if a fight doesn’t happen with girls like this, it’s politics. You can see how it’s politics because I’m ready to fight now and I have to wait nine months and you can see Colby Covington, they’re gonna take his belt – and he got the belt 45 days ago – because Woodley is ready to fight and [Colby] said he’s not ready so they took the belt. This is an example of how politics works.”

Cris Cyborg also reaffirmed that she’s interested in parting ways with the UFC, and discussed some of her options outside the promotion.

“I still have a lot of things left in my career,” she said. “I have two fights left in the UFC and I hope this works well. I have a dream fight boxing fight and I am for sure gonna fight a boxing fight. If it’s not gonna be the UFC, maybe I’ll fight Julia Budd in Bellator. I think I have a lot of doors I can fight [in]. Maybe I could do a Grand Prix, more than one fight per day in Japan. A lot of things can happen. I don’t think this is the finish of my career, this is just one more challenge in my career. I’ve already overcome a lot of things in my career, and if I don’t fight in the UFC anymore, for sure I’m gonna find other ways to keep growing my legacy.”

What do you think the future hold for Cris Cyborg?

This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 8/10/2018.