Cris Cyborg is putting her feud with Ronda Rousey behind her.
A dream match-up between Cyborg and Rousey isn’t likely to come to fruition. Even if it was a possibility, the momentum behind such a bout is nowhere near as strong as it once was. By the time Cyborg made her Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debut, Rousey had already been knocked out in brutal fashion by Holly Holm.
“Rowdy’s” 48-second TKO loss to Amanda Nunes all but closed the door on not only a fight with Cyborg, but her mixed martial arts (MMA) career as well. UFC President Dana White believes Rousey will hang up her gloves for good.
Despite never sharing the Octagon, Cyborg and Rousey had developed a bit of a feud. The argument White always made against the bout was that Cyborg didn’t want to move down to the women’s bantamweight division. Cyborg has always been adamant about not being able to make the weight in a healthy way.
With the featherweight division being introduced in the UFC, Cyborg finally has a place with the promotion. Despite her beef with Rousey, Cyborg insists she never had ill will towards her (via MMAFighting.com):
“I never hated Ronda. She’s always talked about me, she did that to promote herself because when she started nobody knew her, and she talked about me for people to know who she is. And she opened the doors for women’s MMA. I think (a fight between me and her) is the biggest fight ever, but after she lost two fights… I really knew she cannot take a punch. I knew this, you know? And the fight is never gonna happen and never happened before because she knows what’s gonna happen. And a lot of people know what’s gonna happen. Same thing Amanda did, I’m gonna do worse. And everybody knows this, and this fight never happened.”