Dana White Still Wants to Pursue Cris Cyborg vs. Amanda Nunes
No matter what Cris Cyborg wants it appears the UFC is still going to try to book her next fight against women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.
UFC president Dana White said just after Cyborg’s last fight against Holly Holm that he was in the early stages of booking her next bout against Nunes in a champion versus champion super fight.
Immediately afterwards, Cyborg shot down the idea of fighting Nunes in favor of facing a legitimate challenger from the women’s featherweight division. Cyborg has stated numerous times that she wanted to not only help to build the 145-pound weight class but also face off with opponents her own size as opposed to constantly taking on bantamweights who were packing on the pounds to challenge her.
Regardless of those objections, White still seems dead set on booking the fight between Cyborg and Nunes.
“That’s the fight that I want to do. That’s the fight that I want. We’re working on it,” White said on Sunday night. “Amanda wants to fight her and we’re finally in a position where we can give Cyborg big fights. Big fights with big named people. Money fights.”
While Cyborg wants to build the women’s featherweight division, White just doesn’t seem to see many viable options in terms of legitimate opponents for her at 145 pounds right now.
Add to that, White looks at Nunes as a real threat not only because she’s the two-time defending women’s bantamweight champion but also due to her career starting out as a featherweight that was supposed to challenge Cyborg years ago, although that matchup never came to fruition.
“If there were more girls in the 145 [pound] division, I would be doing it,” White said. “You have to understand, too, at the end of the day people want to see tough fights and I just gave Cyborg probably her toughest fight in MMA [against Holly Holm] and now Amanda Nunes is no joke and she wants to go. Originally, you want to talk about 145 pounders, [Amanda] was a 145-pound fighter, she was brought into Strikeforce to fight Cyborg. It’s just happening a little bit later than everybody had planned.
“Amanda is ready and that’s the fight everybody wants to see.”
Obviously the UFC really wants that matchup to happen but it remains to be seen if Cyborg will give into their demands and face Nunes or continue her attempts to build a real featherweight division that will thrive outside of only her title defenses.
