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Bellator’s newly crowned women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg still hopes to track down her white whale before calling it a career. Cyborg, whose real name is Cristiane Justino, revealed on The No-Sports Report podcast with Jensen Karp that she’d love the chance to square off against Ronda Rousey in either a cage fight or pro wrestling ring.
“Imagine if this happened,” Cyborg said. “The fans would go crazy… I think is going to be great.”
Cyborg and Rousey were once bitter rivals that seemed to be on a collision course. But what would have been one of the most massive superfights in women’s MMA history was complicated by the fighters competing in different weight classes and then derailed after Rousey shockingly suffered stoppage losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
Rousey retired from MMA after her last loss in 2016.
Cyborg Would Face Rousey in MMA or WWE
While Cyborg said she’d still be willing to face Rousey in MMA, it seems the 34-year-old Brazilian knows that the possibility of a Cyborg vs. Rousey fight at this stage is a longshot at best, and that her top chance at getting her hands on Rousey would be in a pro wrestling ring.
“It’s going to be nice, you know, I think it’s cool,” Cyborg said. “If, you know, we have the opportunity to have [the match] in MMA, to have the opportunity to in pro-wrestling, I think is going to be great.”
Rousey, 33, was one of the highest-paid WWE performers between 2017 and 2018 before taking time off from the grind to be with her family. While she’s been in the news as of late for what some consider dissing WWE fans and the sports entertainment business as a whole, it’s also possible she’s been leaning into inflammatory comments as part of a return storyline.
And it sounds as if Cyborg would love to be part of that return.
“Yeah, I’m open to do it,” Cyborg said. “I know she’s already there. I know she likes to do it, and here we can do something cool. I think for the fans, for them, I think it’s going to be very cool. Epic.”
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Cyborg Has Huge Plans in MMA, Boxing and WWE
Cyborg said she was up to the challenge that competing as a WWE superstar would bring. While she’s currently one of Bellator’s divisional champs and also has plans to compete as a boxer against undisputed welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus, Cyborg also aims someday to add pro wrestling to her impressive list of credentials so long as it doesn’t interfere with her true calling as a mixed martial artist. And that might be the one place she finally meets Rousey.
“I like challenging my career and my fans like that,” Cyborg said. “They know they’re gonna follow me wherever we’re going, but I don’t think I’m going to let us stop doing MMA for the WWE, but if we could have the opportunities be there at some point in my career, it is going to be nice.”
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Twitter: @Kelsey_McCarson