[ad_1]
Cris Cyborg has terminated his free contract.
The former UFC featherweight champion signed an agreement to join the Bellator MMA team where she will team up again with her former Strikeforce promoter, Scott Coker.
The president of Bellator made the announcement on Tuesday saying she had signed the "biggest contract in the history of women's MMA."
"I have worked with countless athletes for over thirty years promoting combat sports, but no one looks like" Cyborg, "said Coker in a statement." His ability to excite the crowd soon the moment she goes to the cage is special, and having had the pleasure of promoting many of her fights in the past, I can not wait to promote her once again.
"Cyborg is the most dominant fighter in the history of the sport and it will be perfect here in Bellator, where the champion Julia Budd and the other women who make up the best female featherweight division in the world are looking forward to her arrival. . "
"I am very pleased to announce that I am partnering with Scott Coker and Viacom and fighting at Bellator," Cyborg said. "You know I have a lot of girls that I want to fight at 145 pounds and that means you're going to have a lot of fights every year and I'm very happy about that!
"My goal is to be the only fighter to hold four different major titles in the same division."
Cyborg was quick to start bidding after finishing her UFC career after defeating Felicia Spencer in July.
This fight was Cyborg's last fight with UFC, but the promotion still had an exclusive trading period to try to sign it again. Instead, UFC President Dana White chose to release her completely from any remaining obligations in her contract, while announcing that he had no intention of signing it.
This ended a tumultuous relationship between Cyborg and the UFC that started while she was fighting under the Invicta FC banner.
When Cyborg finally joined the UFC roster, she competed in two fights without weight loss before a featherweight division did. Once the UFC added a 145 pound weight class, Cyborg became champion with a third-round TKO against Tonya Evinger in July 2017.
She then defended the belt two more times before suffering an impressive 51-second playoff loss against Amanda Nunes in a championship clash against UFC champion 232. Cyborg then returned for the fight against Spencer before the end of his contract with the UFC.
Now, she re-teamed with Coker at Bellator MMA where he built a thriving featherweight division with Julia Budd as defending champion.
Coker helped put Cyborg in the spotlight when he was president of Strikeforce. He promoted his hit bout against Gina Carano in 2009, the most-watched MMA event on Showtime at the time, with more than 850,000 viewers during the main event.
It is not yet known when Cyborg will debut, but it is likely that she jumps straight into the bottom of the 145-pound division. Budd previously stated in an interview with MMA Fighting that she had welcomed the challenge.
"I think it would be great," Budd said in July. "She was a force to be reckoned with 145 [pounds] for a long time. As a martial artist, I always want the best challenges, so I would be excited for this fight, that 's for sure. "
[ad_2]
Source link