UFC president Dana White didn’t hold back in discussing Cris Cyborg’s exit from the promotion.
Late last week, an interview with White was released by the UFC. White revealed to Laura Sanko that the UFC will not be matching any offers made to Cyborg from other promotions. Cyborg competed in the last bout of her UFC deal back in July, defeating Felicia Spencer via unanimous decision.
White Goes Off On ‘Nightmare’ Cyborg
White spoke to reporters following the 23rd edition of his Contender Series. White doubled down on why the UFC is “out of the Cyborg business” (via MMAJunkie.com).
“No, I wouldn’t do anything different,” White said. “The one thing I’m glad I did was I pushed her to make sure she fought Amanda Nunes, because she didn’t want that fight the first time, let alone the second time. She wanted Cindy Dandois or Pam Sorensen. Those are the fights she wanted, and she was turning down Amanda Nunes. I said, ‘That’s not going to happen.’ So we kept pushing and pushing and pushing and finally we got her to take the Amanda Nunes fight. I’m happy I did that. Other than that I wouldn’t change one thing in the last five years on Cyborg.”
White went on to explain why working with Cyborg was no picnic.
“Dealing with her has been a nightmare the entire time she’s been here,” White said. “It’s been a bad experience dealing with Cyborg since Day 1. We brought in her after she tested positive for steroids and we made her a clean athlete with the best drug testing policy in all of sports the entire time she was here. When she talks about her legacy and her brand, her legacy and her brand, nothing’s better than knowing she’s a clean athlete after testing positive for steroids and all the negativity that surrounded her about being a dirty athlete. We bring her in here, we do all this stuff and she was just never happy.”
White then made it clear that he is none too pleased with Cyborg’s team editing footage of his conversation with the former UFC women’s featherweight champion.
“Never happy, complaining about everything – she was a nightmare to deal with, and at the end of the day she knows, I know, Amanda Nunes knows, I tried to make that Nunes fight. She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t want it. She gets mad when I say I don’t blame her. I don’t blame her. If that was Amanda Nunes (at UFC 240) I think everyone can agree what would’ve happened in that fight. She’s unhappy, we’re unhappy, she lies and does that thing. See ya later. Have a nice life.
“I don’t think there’s any peace between me and Cyborg. Whether you like me or you don’t like me, whatever your opinion is it doesn’t matter. What she did was dirty. It was dirty what she did with the video and all this other stuff in it. Meanwhile she’s out here saying she better get an apology from me? Yeah. I got an apology from her. Because what she did was one of the dirtiest things. It had to kill her to apologize to me. Kill her to do it. But what she did is one of the dirtiest things you can do to somebody. That’s why she apologized.”
