After Dana White told Yahoo! Sports he was making the dream bout of featherweight champ Cris Cyborg vs. bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes it might have hit a snag. On Cris’s website she shot the bout offer down stating that she believes another featherweight deserves a shot.
Instead of offering a fight to the next Featherweight contender available, Holly Holm was given the bout despite going 1-3 over her past 4 fights. The matchup proved popular with the fans, and our styles eventually made for Fight Of The Night, however Holm was given a title shot over girls who had been fighting at 145lbs and winning because she was more popular, and not because she was the next contender in line.
Having re-established myself as the WORLD CHAMPION at 145lbs I feel it is my obligation to fight the #1 contender at 145lbs in my next fight. I have fought 4 consecutive fights against girls who have come up from 135lbs to fight me, because they were “SUPERFIGHTS” for the fans. Besides Lina Lansburg (I fought her at 140) none of these girls had been fighting at featherweight.
As a World Champion it is important that you face the #1 contender. That is what makes it sport and not entertainment, otherwise what are the girls fighting at 145lbs training to work towards if they know they will never be given a title shot even if they become the best in the world? I have a responsibility to the sport to ensure that when I retire the 145lbs division continues to exist, and it is because of that I want my next fight to be against a contender from the featherweight division that has fought at 145lbs within the last year.
Superfights be damned! We want Nunes vs. Cyborg but the UFC has been making money fights and clogging divisions full of contenders up for months. It’s selfish to not want the featherweights in waiting to get a shot. It’s in your court Dana.