'Cyborg' Says Superfight With Nunes Not The Biggest Challenge of Her Career

A superfight between current Ultimate Fighting Championship women’s featherweight champion Cristiane Justino, better known as “Cyborg,” and bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes is all but confirmed although an actual date hasn’t been set which is causing a lot of frustration for “Cyborg,” who says she is ready to fight now.

“Cyborg” produced another devastating performance in her demolition of Yana Kunitskaya back in March, finishing the former Invicta FC champion in the first round and remaining undefeated in her UFC career.

The 33 year-old Brazilian was hopeful of keeping active by taking the fight with Nunes in September although the bantamweight champ announced on social media that she has signed a contract to fight “Cyborg” at UFC 232 on December 29 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This announcement didn’t sit well with the pound-for-pound queen who wanted to be more active in 2018 and said she’d be willing to face another featherweight in the meantime to keep her momentum going.

”Amanda has talked a bunch of stuff, saying she couldn’t fight, that she was injured and would take her six months to recover,” Cyborg told MMA Fighting. “She challenged me in January and said she’s injured and needs some time. Ok, fine, but I’m a champion in my division and I’m always fighting.

”She’s used to fighting only once a year, but I’m ready to fight now. It’s been four months since my last fight, and I’m ready. There’s no excuse. ‘Oh, but there aren’t opponents for you.’ There are. If you look out there, there are. I’ve always fought in Invicta and always had opponents.”

Nunes was interviewed by Combate over the weekend during the UFC event in Calgary. The Brazilian was helping her girlfriend Nina Ansaroff for her fight and told reporters the reason she didn’t accept the fight in September with “Cyborg” was because she was busy with work.

”If you watch her interviews, it’s like she’s going out on vacation,” Justino said. “My job is fighting. I want to fight. I don’t want to stay out for almost a year in my prime. I think it’s disrespectful. … Dana (White) took Colby Covington’s belt. He won that belt two months ago and was stripped because (Tyron) Woodley wants to fight and he’s injured. How about me, who wants to fight? She challenged me six months ago and still needs six months? She said she’s going to travel with her girlfriend. No problem with that, but I’m ready to fight. A champion must be ready at all times. I want to fight now, and when she’s ready we can fight.

”It’s no secret that the UFC doesn’t promote Brazilians,” she continued. “Ketlen Vieira will fight Tonya Evinger now. She has 10 straight wins and should be fighting for the belt. OK, Amanda wants to move up, so she deserves an interim belt in Sao Paulo against a ranked girl. She’s fighting Tonya Evinger, who’s not even ranked in the UFC, in a non-title fight. Why are they doing that? Because they will do Holly Holm with someone else for the interim belt. I’m almost positive of that. But that’s not right with Ketlen Vieira, who is ranked. You see what happened with ‘Jacare’ (Souza) and Demian Maia… But that doesn’t even frustrate me anymore.

”With my fans helping me, I think I can fight sooner,” Justino added. “It’s not fair to have me sidelined in my prime because Amanda wants to go out on vacation. I’m the champion for 10 years, before the UFC had women fighting. I’m the champion and that’s how I make a living. We only get paid when we fight, and I’ll stay out for almost a year waiting for Amanda.”

When asked if Cyborg thought because the bout has the tag of ‘superfight’ it would be biggest challenge of her career, she dismissed the suggestion, claiming that Nunes’ last performance left a lot to be desired.

”I don’t think so,” Cyborg said. “I saw her last fight in Brazil, with Raquel Pennington. Raquel was out for two years and I thought Amanda would do a different fight. I don’t know. She can surprise, we don’t know, but based on what I saw in her last fight, I don’t see much. She has the quality for that, to put on a great fight, and that’s what I hope for.

”Amanda has many qualities, has beaten a lot of girls, but she hasn’t fought a girl like me,” she continued. “In fact, she used to fight in my weight class and didn’t have much success. If she had success we would have fought already, right? Moving up [in weight], I believe it’s a tough fight because she like to move forward, but I see that Amanda doesn’t handle pressure. She puts pressure, but can’t handle the pressure back.

”When I put pressure, she will feel it,” Justino added. “You see in my fights, when you pressure me I come back with even more pressure. You saw her fight with Cat Zingano. I don’t think she can take the pressure. But I believe it will be a great fight.”

In a sign of just how desperately “Cyborg” wants to fight, she said she is willing to defend her featherweight title on the Fight Night card on September 22 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

”If the only option is Sao Paulo, I want to fight,” she said. “Fans will love watching me fight in Sao Paulo. It can be on a smaller card. I just want to fight.”

Cyborg has talked about pursuing a boxing career when her current UFC contract finishes and she’s mentioned before that the fight with Nunes could be her last appearance in the UFC.

The pound-for-pound queen says the long spells between fights are a waste of her talent considering she’s in her prime and fighters seem to be looking to avoid her rather than meet her head-on inside the Octagon.

”It’s the difficulty of working together,” Cyborg said of why she considers not re-signing with the UFC right away. “I want to see which options I got. I want to see the options. I like to fight where people respect me. I like my job and I think it’s disrespectful to stay out for almost a year in my prime.”