UFC Fight Night 95 headliner Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino has revealed that she still has to lose 24lbs to reach the 140lb catchweight for Friday’s weigh-ins, ahead of her fight with Lina Lansberg in Brazil.
‘Cyborg’ told MMAfignting.com’s Ariel Helwani that she flew to Brazil five days ago weighing 168lbs, and since then she’s been able to lose just 3lbs.
That was completely unexpected and the alarmed fighter is currently pointing the finger of blame at birth control pills her nutritionist had been giving her.
“In this camp, my nutrition coach, he starts giving to me birth control, and I never take this in my life, and I take this three months, every day,” ‘Cyborg’ said on The MMA Hour show. “My coach says it will be good for me, I believe in him, and, man I fly from America to Brazil 168 pounds. My body will hold more water than normal, and I don’t think this will really help my body.”
According to ‘Cyborg’ she’s been training harder than ever, yet the weight just isn’t coming off the way she’d normally expect to see.
“This camp I don’t touch 150. It’s really scary, I look in the mirror, I trained double and I don’t know why I don’t touch ’50. Just something different in this camp is I take birth control. Last fight, I make 140, it was successful.”
‘Cyborg’s’ troubles will surely only continue to raise questions about why the UFC persists in making her fight at a catchweight of 140lbs, rather than allow her to fight at her natural weight 145lb featherweight division.
Clearly they had been hoping that she would eventually be able to make it down to 135lbs, where there is already an established division in the UFC and a number of potential blockbuster match-ups.
However, it’s become painfully obvious that weight cut would be a bad idea for the Brazilian star, and even dropping to 140lbs is something that the 31 year-old would have to think about long and hard before attempting again.
“I don’t want to say I’ll never fight 140 again, that’s probably not true. But a lot of things have to change. If I make 140, I sacrifice a lot of things in my life, my diet, my training, my thyroid, its insane to make 140, I think a lot of things have to be put on the table before I make 140 again.”
