Manager: Holly Holm won’t fight Cris Cyborg at UFC 219 because of ‘financial terms’

A highly-anticipated women’s Featherweight title fight between division champion Cris Cyborg and former Bantamweight titleholder, Holly Holm — which was close to being finalized to take place at the upcoming UFC 219 event on Dec. 30, 2017 — has been stopped dead in its tracks.

That’s according to Lenny Fresquez — manager to Holm — who told MMA Fighting that negotiations have stalled and the bout is unlikely to happen at the pay-per-view (PPV) event since the two sides couldn’t reach financial terms.

“Holly was anxiously awaiting the Dec. 30 fight with Cyborg and had been training for it. But we could not come to financial terms for this featherweight title bout in December. We look forward to meeting her under the right circumstances.”

Insert sad face here.

Holm was hoping to score the title bout against Cyborg after getting back on the winning track with her spectacular knockout victory over Bethe Correia at UFC Singapore earlier this year, which ended her three-fight skid (recap here).

As for Cyborg, she won the vacant 145-pound strap at UFC 214 by taking out a very game Tanya Evinger via third round knockout (see it again here), and had been lobbying for a bout against “The Preacher’s Daughter” at every turn. Unfortunately, it won’t be happening in 2017 at what is sure-to-be a stacked year-end event.

Conor McGregor to the rescue?