SAN JOSE, Calif. – Cris Cyborg remains the Bellator women’s featherweight champion. But for how much longer? That is the question.
Cyborg, who’s ruled the promotion’s 145-pound division since her arrival in January 2020, fought out her contract last April after winning a unanimous decision in a rematch with Arlene Blencowe at Bellator 279. Cyborg isn’t quite a free agent, according to Bellator president Scott Coker, who repeatedly has called her the greatest women’s fighter of all time.
He’s confident that she’ll remain with Bellator.
“I wouldn’t jump to conclusions. We’re still in dialogue with Cris,” Coker told MMA Junkie and other reporters after Bellator 292. “We respect her. We think that she is, to me, the GOAT in the female division. She fought (in San Jose), was it 2009, against Gina Carano in the very first female MMA fight on national TV to be the main event. She’s a lot of historical things and had great success, a great career. So I wouldn’t count that out.
“We’ll make decisions (about featherweight) based on what happens. We still have some contractual rights (to Cyborg) until August, so let’s see how it plays out. We’re going to engage with her (this) week, start talking – what we want to do. But I still think we’re in a very good position with her. I think she loves being here. I think we have a very good working relationship. We’ve been working together since 2009 or 2008 maybe. I wouldn’t count it out yet.”
Cyborg, 37, has since fulfilled a desire to compete in boxing by winning twice in the ring. It speaks well of her working relationship with Bellator that she’s done so with the blessing of the promotion despite being in limbo.
Cyborg also has entertained talk of a superfight with two-time PFL women’s lightweight champion Kayla Harrison, which would be possible as a cross-promotion with Bellator, but it could be even closer to reality if Cyborg hit free agency.
As Coker alluded to, everything depends on which direction the promotion wants to move not just with Cyborg but with the division as a whole.
“We have contractual obligations to allow these females to fight. So it doesn’t have to be so black and white right now. I think that there’s a little bit of a gray area, but it’s onward and forward until we actually make a decision one way or the other,” Coker said. “One of the things we take pride in is the fighters we wanted to keep, we’re able to keep – whether it was Strikeforce or whether it is here in Bellator. The situation, for instance, for Michael Chandler: great talent. That was a business decision that we made internally to eventually pour more money into our lightweight division as a whole and pour more money into A.J. McKee and all the other (fighters) and build a real lightweight division, because it was really thin at that time. You let an athlete go, and there’s business reasons behind it – it’s not just, ‘Oh, let’s let this guy walk or this girl walk.’ There’s some business ramifications of what we’re doing, and the outcome really is to make the league overall much healthier.
“The Cyborg thing is no different. But with her, I feel good about it. When you’re saying fighters come and go, I mean, in Strikeforce we kept everybody, really that we wanted to keep, and I think in Bellator it’s the same thing. We invest in the fighters that we want to be in business with.”
