Cris Justino sick of sitting on the shelf
- Disclaimer — when we refer to the UFC in our articles we are of course not referring to the hard working men and women behind the scenes who are rarely credited for their hard work.
Whilst the male champions hose themselves down in testosterone as to whom is the greatest of all time (goat) and the baddest man on the planet, on some dark, dank shelf somewhere there is a much forgotten female fighter who happens to be ‘the baddest female fighter on the planet’. With nobody she could even call her equal or a close second, ‘heavy is the head that wears the crown’ an adaptation of the original text from shakespear’s King Henry the Fourth which actually reads: ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’. Whilst ‘heavy’ implies pressure ‘uneasy’ implies the restlessness that is part and parcel of the job of the crown bearer.
Cyborg has again become restless with the UFC, her contract and her imaginary division that she presides over like a minster of religion in a beautiful golden pulpit only to look out to an absent congregation. Sure she has the golden belt that says she is the champ but without a division to rule over she is the discontented and sleepless giant that sits alone, haunted by the fact that she is the best in the world only there is little evidence of that since the UFC from a world of 7 billion people could not muster up a single person to join her division and be a partaker in her historic journey to date.
The UFC can ‘chew away’ on putting together fights with current USADA suspended fighters and call them ‘superfights’ , the hypocrisy knows no bounds here.
How did we get to a place where a suspended fighter who hasn’t even finished his suspension is now being offered a title shot for the heavyweight title and is not a current rostered UFC fighter? Sorry we ought to say an unranked fighter is about to get a title shot who is also suspended at this time.You couldn’t make this up!
I remembered asking my mum (when I was around 7 years of age) ‘if crime doesn’t pay does that mean the police work for free?’..she said: ‘not exactly!’
Poor Mark Hunt’s jaw must have dropped off in disbelief as his nemesis, USADA offender is now poised for a title shot and it is right out there in his face.
Hunt’s contention with the UFC is that they knowingly placed him in the Octagon with a fighter that was juiced to the gills and though the UFC promotion vehemently have denied such an allegation, here we are almost 2 years to date from UFC200 (Date:Sun, 10 Jul 2016, 03:00 Main Card) REWARDING Brock with a title shot because he is a PPV draw and that trumps any minor suspension or USADA infraction he may have incurred in his last outing with the premier promotion.
The UFC has no conscience but the fans do and the fans wanting to see a clean sport may not gravitate to this display of defiance (ignoring the ranked fighters who deserve a title shot) and recklessness (rewarding a cheat with a title shot). Based on the stats from BT sport almost 60% of the fans would rather Miocic, who up until now is the greatest title defending champion to date at HW) get another crack at the newly anointed King Cormier and not the WWE circus fight between DC and Lesnar.
THe UFC makes excuses for what they do not have ..instead of focusing and building fights with the fighters they do have.
The UFC doesn’t have:
A Conor McGregor discussion on his return.
A Jon Jones return
A GSP return
A Nate and Nick Diaz return
But they do have the greatest female fighter on the planet sitting on a shelf in earnest looking to stay active and willing to fight anyone in the mean time.
Most recently Cyborg spoke to Combate and said this would be the 3rd occasion that she has agreed to fight Amanda Nunes and her patience is now wearing thin for a champion who likes to stay active.
According to Cyborg, she had already agreed to face Amanda back in March, after her title defence against Yana Kunitskaya at UFC 222 march 03,2018 however this was not possible since Amanda was booked to defend her title at UFC 224 (May 12, 2018) against Raquel Pennington.
July was also not possible as Nunes needed time to recover from an injury she sustained in her said title defence and required six months (it would actually be five months time if they were targetting UFC232 in December.)
Finally, Cyborg says she was offered UFC228 in Dallas in September to fight Nunes but this fell through because of the said injury that Nunes was still recovering from. Cyborg’s frustration is borne from the fact that it really doesn’t matter what your contract is worth in the promotion, you really only make any money if you are actually fighting and she has been fight ready for the last few months and would rather fight anyone at this point than sit on the shelf for the next 5 months waiting for a ‘Superfight’ against Amanda Nunes.
Based on the fact that the earliest the UFC can put together a fight for her (in the month of December) since her last outing in May it would not be hard to conclude that it would be highly unlikely that the UFC plans to make any other fight by her contract expiration date in March of 2019 in which case she would be free to walk away from the premier promotion.
Sadly Cyborg is now faced with a choice, stay in the UFC and fight probably once or twice a year and get paid like a champion or pursue her need to compete in another promotion but not necessarily with the same financial rewards. However, being as it is with PPV’s at an all time low( one of the fringe benefits of being a champion fighter is the points each champion has negotiated on the PPV’s purchased) she may find that there are compatible packages and promotions that would be quick to sign the 145lb Queen.
Whilst the UFC struggles to put together fight cards it is amazing that they have shelved a fighter who is not only willing to step in on short notice to fight but needs to fight and stay active.
Will she go or will she stay, I guess will be answered shortly in the months to follow but with Cyborg’s temperament at an all time low it would be easy to understand if she does jump ship in the near future. Unless the UFC can step up Cyborg’s fight schedule instead of following Conor McGregor around like a lost puppy (who clearly does not want to fight or is in no hurry to, especially as his partner has hinted that they will be expecting an addition to the family) they may actually loose the baddest woman on the planet through ‘inactivity’.
In the mean time why doesn’t the UFC have a DWTNCS recruiting women for the 145lb division? Please don’t tell me we are the only ones here to think about that?
Additional news
Alvarez vs Poirier II has been ear marked as Dana White’s birthday fight card as his bithday is the day before ..here’s to hoping that MCGregor and White will finally get the elusive sit down and try to work something out for UFC232. (The last fight card for the year end)
