Ronda Rousey on the only way she thinks the Cyborg fight will ever happen
All of a sudden the potential for a fight between Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg is back in the news.
UFC president Dana White trashed Cyborg during a media luncheon, prompting White adversary Tito Ortiz to step down as Cyborg's manager. Ortiz said he was resigning in an effort to make the UFC more open to Rousey-Cyborg, but that fight still seems like it won't happen any time soon, if ever.
In an interview this week with FOX Sports, Rousey gave her opinion on the circumstances in which it could go down. The UFC women's bantamweight champion said the only way she sees the fight happening is if the UFC pays Cyborg enough money so that she won't ever have to fight again.
"She knows she's gonna get beat by me," Rousey said. "It has to be such an amount of money for her to be able to retire off it. I don't know if that offer is ever going to come."
Rousey, 27, made those comments before Ortiz stepped down, but will that really change anything? White did say Cyborg was misguided (he used more colorful verbiage) to have Ortiz as her manager. But there are other things standing in the way.
White said Cyborg has already gone on record saying she would "die" if she had to cut to 135 pounds and it would be hard for him to bring that fight to a commission because of that statement. Currently, Cyborg is the Invicta FC 145-pound champion and has resisted dropping to 135 to fight Rousey. Cyborg has proposed fighting Rousey at 145 or a catchweight. White isn't so into that idea.
"So Ronda is gonna chase her?" White said. "Ronda doesn't need Cyborg. How many fans want to see that? Again, you guys are talking about a very small segment. Most people don't even know who the f**k Cyborg is."
Cyborg being suspended for performance-enhancing drug use at the end of her run at Strikeforce 145-pound champion was also a big topic of conversation at White's lunch. He accused the media of being hypocritical for always asking about Cyborg when Vitor Belfort, who admittedly uses testosterone replacement therapy, is constantly criticized.
"You guys want to kick Vitor Belfort in the balls every f***ing second of every day, in every press conference and everything else," White said. "But you want to ask me if f***ing Cyborg is gonna fight Ronda. How does that make any f***ing sense?"
Reporters pressed White on if it's a fight he wants to see, but he evaded the question. Though Cyborg has never fought in the UFC, she did fight Gina Carano in one of the biggest women's MMA bouts ever in Strikeforce. She's still relatively well known, even to casual fans. It's not arguable that Rousey-Cyborg is the biggest money women's fight the UFC could do.
"Sticks and stones might break my bones, but words will never hurt me," Cyborg told BJPenn.com. "I ask for everyone who follows me to watch my next fight and I hope the best for Dana."
Rousey, like White, believes the UFC doesn't need Cyborg nor that fight.
"She's a proven cheater and fraud," Rousey said. "Women's MMA is doing just fantastically without her."
It could certainly benefit from a fight between the two best women's fighters in the world though.
