Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos manager Tito Ortiz appeared on the Inside MMA show on AXS:TV last night and revealed that the fighter has turned down the UFC’s latest contract offer.
Furthermore, Ortiz says they’ve now asked for her to be released from the UFC and are preparing to field new offers from other promotions for the former Strikeforce 145lb champion.
It appears that the fact that ‘Cyborg’ is unwilling (or in her opinion unable) to cut down to 135lbs remains the major stumbling block that’s preventing the deal from happening.
On the show Ortiz made what could turn out to be a final plea for the UFC to agree to let ‘Cyborg’ fight Rousey at a catchweight of 140lbs.
On the face of it that seems like a reasonable request – after all there’s been numerous occasions in the past in the UFC where a catchweight has been agreed to.
The big difference though is that in most cases those were one-off, transitional fights, whereas it appears that ‘Cyborg’ has no intention of ever moving down to 135lbs.
That creates a huge headache for the UFC if ‘Cyborg’ were to defeat Rousey in a catchweight fight as they don’t feel there’s enough female competitors to create a 145lb weight class, so she’d essentially be stuck in limbo at 140lbs, unable to become the official champion.
That would turn the 135lb division into a farce and there’s no way the UFC would agree to head down that route just for the sake of one fight, regardless of how big it may be.
So, from the looks of things there is a possibility ‘Cyborg’ may end up heading elsewhere after all, with all-female promotion Invicta FC being a potential target, though her best bet would be to try to secure a deal over at Bellator who have ran woman’s tournaments in the past.
