Cris Cyborg's Long-Awaited UFC Debut Raises Questions About What's Next
Finally, arguably the most dominant women’s MMA fighter in the world is coming to the Octagon.
Cris “Cyborg” Justino and the UFC put years of bad blood and false starts behind them Monday, when the fight company announced she’ll make her promotional debut at UFC 198 on May 14.
The former Strikeforce and current Invicta FC featherweight champion will face Leslie Smith in a catchweight bout at 140 pounds. The UFC made the official announcement on its website, and the booking raises some questions about where this fledgling partnership might lead.
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For a long time, negotiations between Cyborg and the UFC went nowhere fast. Despite reports that she had been under contract with the organization since mid-2015, the two sides have been unable to come together on a fight until now.
Questions remain about whether she’ll ever make the women’s bantamweight division’s 135-pound limit, but at least for now she won’t have to.
The UFC’s sudden willingness to book Justino into a 140-pound catchweight signals that perhaps the promotion is done trying to force a square peg to fit in a round hole. Cyborg’s inability to safely make 135 pounds, after all, had been one of many long-standing obstacles in the way of a fight between her and Ronda Rousey.
Negotiations over that doomed bout turned nasty in 2014, with Rousey steadfastly refusing to meet her at a catchweight and continually mocking Cyborg for failing a drug test after a fight in 2011.
The discourse dipped painfully low, with Rousey referring to Cyborg as an “it” during interviews, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan making lewd jokes about her on his podcast and company president Dana White once quipping during a press conference that Justino “looked like Wanderlei Silva in a dress.”
Rogan later apologized for his remark.
Perhaps with Rousey knocked from her throne by Holly Holm and still out on hiatus, relations between the UFC and Cyborg’s camp have thawed enough for her to make her debut at last.
Better late than never, according to some:
"Not sure why this took so long on the UFC's part. Cyborg could have been smashing the same fighters in the UFC in the name of entertainment.
— caposa (@GrabakaHitman) March 28, 2016"
It also seems like the UFC is handing Justino a matchup designed to make her look good.
Despite being a scrappy and exciting fighter, Smith doesn’t figure to stand much chance here. She’s just 2-2 to date in her UFC career. Prior to making her own transition to the Octagon in 2014, she’d had her last two fights in Invicta’s flyweight (125-pound) division.
That means Smith is a smallish bantamweight who will be moving up to make 140 pounds, while Justino is coming down. We’ve seen what happens when Cyborg gets the chance to take on smaller fighters, and it is not a pretty picture.
But if the UFC is teeing Justino up with an opportunity to make her debut in impressive fashion, it automatically raises questions of what might be next for her.
There is an outside chance that this appearance will be a one-off thing for Justino. She’s still the Invicta champion, after all, so maybe the UFC is merely bringing her in as a local attraction for UFC 198.
That event will be held in a 43,000-seat stadium in Curitiba, Brazil, and will be headlined by heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum’s title defense against Stipe Miocic. Brazilian favorites Vitor Belfort, Anderson Silva and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua (among others) are also already on the card. It’s possible Justino will only be there to help build a massive live gate.
Possible, but not likely.
This matchup smacks of the UFC having something up its sleeve for later.
Exactly what, however, is anybody’s guess.
Despite the fact Rousey always appeared unwilling to make a catchweight bout happen, both Holm and current champion Miesha Tate have said they’re game. That means Cyborg might be an insurance policy of sorts for UFC matchmakers.
Whatever happens in Rousey’s assumed return fight against Tate, it gives the company a good next option for any one of its current Big Three.
If Rousey wins the bantamweight title back from Tate and it turns out Justino actually can make 135 pounds—this foray down to 140 might be seen as a good test run—their ensuing championship fight would be huge. On the other hand, she could just as easily meet Tate or Holm, again at a catchweight.
It’s also possible the UFC might look to add its own women’s featherweight division at some point in the future. Cyborg would immediately become the favorite to be the champion of that weight class, but numerous current UFC fighters—Holm, for example—could probably fight there as well.
In any case, Justino’s UFC debut will be welcome news for hardcore fans who have long hungered to see her competing on the sport’s biggest stage.
Hopefully, this is merely the beginning.
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