Cyborg Says Politics Are Involved In UFC Matchmaking

UFC Women’s Featherweight Champion Cyborg is expected to defend the gold in a super fight against UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes later this year.

The Brazilian phenom believes that when it comes to matchmaking in the UFC, politics plays a huge role.

“Before Dana White gave the belt to Ronda, I was already the champion in my division, 145, and I think all my fans know what I deal with every day,” Cyborg said on MMA Tonight. “Like with Ronda or other fights, it’s all politics. I’m the champion a long time, 12 years undefeated, and if a fight doesn’t happen with girls like this, it’s politics. You can see how it’s politics because I’m ready to fight now and I have to wait nine months and you can see Colby Covington, they’re gonna take his belt – and he got the belt 45 days ago – because Woodley is ready to fight and [Colby] said he’s not ready so they took the belt. This is an example of how politics works.”

It should be noted that Ronda Rousey was never handed the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Title, but was made the first UFC champion in that weight class because she was the Strikeforce Women’s Bantamweight Champion when the promotion was merged into the UFC.

Cyborg has some plans to compete outside of the UFC, including potentially challenging Julia Budd for the Bellator MMA Women’s Featherweight Title.

“I still have a lot of things left in my career,” Cyborg said. “I have two fights left in the UFC and I hope this works well. I have a dream fight boxing fight and I am for sure gonna fight a boxing fight. If it’s not gonna be the UFC, maybe I’ll fight Julia Budd in Bellator. I think I have a lot of doors I can fight [in]. Maybe I could do a Grand Prix, more than one fight per day in Japan. A lot of things can happen. I don’t think this is the finish of my career, this is just one more challenge in my career. I’ve already overcome a lot of things in my career, and if I don’t fight in the UFC anymore, for sure I’m gonna find other ways to keep growing my legacy.”

There are only three UFC pay-per-views with no main events announced at this time, which means there are still some slots for Cyborg versus Nunes to take place at.