Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women’s bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey, was previously considered the greatest female mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter on the planet.
NOT ONCE IN A LIFETIME. ONCE EVER.
So as “Rowdy” began to amass a significant body count inside the Octagon, turning away the likes of Miesha Tate and Sara McMann, among others, fans and pundits were forced to look elsewhere for the next big challenge.
And they didn't get any bigger than featherweight smashing machine Cristiane Justino.
The Brazilian “Cyborg” was expected to (eventually) fight Rousey at some point in 2017, perhaps causing the Olympian to lose focus and overlook Holly Holm, who planished Rousey in the UFC 193 main event.
“I think when Ronda fought Holly, everyone said after she beats Holly, you’re going to fight Cyborg,” Justino told reporters (via MMA Fighting). “She doesn’t think about Holly first. She already think about to accept fight with me. I think you have to think about each fight, you cannot think about already beating someone you haven’t fight yet. I think everyone was speaking of it before it happened.”
What were they speaking about when this happened?
Now that Rousey has dropped two straight and faded from view, Justino will move on to face Holm, who bounced between the bantamweight and featherweight divisions after losing her strap at UFC 196.
A fight that should have stayed in the “Valley.”
They’ll do the deed at the upcoming UFC 219 pay-per-view (PPV) event, scheduled for Dec. 30, 2017 inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. For much more on that pending contest click here.
Get the latest gear
