This weekend current Strikeforce 135lb champion Ronda Rousey faces another significant challenge as she takes on former title holder Sarah Kaufman, but many believe that her biggest test still lies ahead in the shape of Cris ‘Cyborg’ Santos.
The former 145lb champion is currently serving a year’s suspension from the sport after testing positive for steroids following her last victory in December, but she’s already plotting her return to action.
Naturally she’s determined to earn back her reputation as the most dominant fighter in female MMA which means that a fight with Rousey is firmly in her sights, but in a new interview she reveals that she has a more personal reason to want to get in the cage with her.
“I really wanna fight Ronda. She says bad things about me,” ‘Cyborg’ told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour yesterday. “I never say bad things about my opponent.
Rousey has indeed been outspoken about ‘Cyborg’s’ steroid usage, commenting at the time news of the suspension broke that, “It’s not like she beat [her opponents] on technique, and if she wasn’t doping, she wouldn’t have won any of those fights,” and also adding, “I think women’s MMA is better in general with her gone.”
That’s clearly fired up ‘Cyborg’ and she has no intention of leaving the sport for good. Instead she hopes to settle her difference with Rousey the old-fashioned way, although there’s one catch – she can’t make it down to the 135lb weight limit so her rival would have to agree to move up in weight instead.
“I want to do my best in the octagon, and if she says she wants to fight me, she can come to my weight or at 140,” ‘Cyborg’ says.
The 27 year-old further stirs the pot though by suggesting that Rousey is scared to fight her.
“She started at 145, and [now] she’s running to 135. She’s running to not fight me. And after, she speaks a lot of sh*t about me.”
Let’s face it, this fight would be the female equivalent of a ‘superfight’ like Silva Vs GSP or Silva Vs Jones. It’s inevitable that it will happen in the end, and when it does it’ll be by far the biggest fight in woman’s MMA history.
