It appears that plans for a women’s featherweight title fight between Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino and Holly Holm at UFC 219 have been shelved.
That’s the message coming out of Holm’s camp, with her manager Larry Fresquez indicating that financial negotations appear to have broken down in relation to the match-up.
“Holly was anxiously awaiting the Dec. 30 fight with Cyborg and had been training for it,” Fresquez told MMAFighting. “But we could not come to financial terms for this featherweight title bout in December. We look forward to meeting her under the right circumstances.”
It’s been a struggle for the UFC to make this fight happen from the beginning, though up until this point it had appeared to be ‘Cyborg’s’ financial demands that were the main issue, with the champion having previously called off negotiations for that very reason.
Now it seems that the UFC are struggling to come to terms with Holm, though it remains to be seen if Fresquez’s decision to go public with the issue is merely a ploy to put more pressure on the promotion to give in to their demands as the event draws ever closer.
As it stands UFC 219 remains without a headline fight and has also just suffered a significant blow with the news that Dominick Cruz has been forced out of his bout with Jimmie Rivera due to a broken arm.
Dana White has refused to rule out the possibility that lightweight champion Conor McGregor may fight on the card, but with there barely being seven weeks until the show at the T-Mobile Arena it seems unlikely that ‘The Notorious’ would be in such a rush to return to action.
Up until this point the ‘Cyborg’ Vs Holm fight was looking likely to be the fall-back option, but if that deal is now ‘dead in the water’ then the UFC have their work cut out for them to deliver an enticing main event for the event.
