UFC President Dana White continues the hypocritical statements towards Cyborg Santos. He was asked if she was going to be granted her release from the UFC at the UFC on FUEL TV 7 pre-fight media scrum in London.
You can listen to the whole thing here, but I thought this statement was telling:
We have 10 of the best 135 pounders in the world as far as the women go. We’re going to do this division, see how this fight goes down or whatever. Cyborg is pretty much irrelevant fight now. I mean she really is, she’s irrelevant. Go out there and win some fights again, get your name back, stay clean, stay off some steroids, and get your career back on track and we can talk.
So it looks like she will be granted her release from the UFC. No disrespect to Liz Carmouche who’ll be fighting Ronda Rousey at UFC 157 next week, but the only women’s fight that fans really want to see is Cyborg Santos against Ronda Rousey. A Cyborg/Rousey fight would have generated significantly more buzz than the Rousey/Carmouche bout. Also, if Cyborg was so irrelevant why were they trying to make that fight with Cyborg coming off the suspension?
Did Cyborg Santos get caught cheating? Absolutely.
However, to hear White talk in this manner regarding Santos when he was ready to grant Alistair Overeem a title shot after he just served a nine month suspension for cheating is laughable. Chael Sonnen received a title fight after he got caught cheating as well. He says that a catchweight bout is a dumb idea because it wouldn’t be a title fight.
Well, neither would a Georges St-Pierre vs. Anderson Silva ‘superfight’. Of course it all boils down to money and Rousey has the potential to be a real money maker for the UFC. A loss to Cyborg in a non-title fight would be devastating to the aura that Rousey has created in such a short time.
Cyborg’s manager Tito Ortiz has scheduled a press conference for Friday to talk about what the future holds for Santos. I know they wanted to get a couple of ‘warm up’ fights in since she’s coming off such a long layoff. It’ll be interesting if she signs with the all women’s promotion Invicta FC.
Stay tuned to ProMMAnow.com for more women’s MMA news and coverage.