Cris Cyborg says she’s still a free agent, but that she has every intention of re-signing with Bellator.
This Saturday, Cyborg faces Gabrielle Holloway in the co-main event of the Terence Crawford vs. David Avanesyan WBO welterweight title fight card. The fight will be Cyborg’s second boxing bout this year, having defeated Simone Silva by unanimous decision back in September, but though the she has been focusing heavily on the sweet science lately, Cyborg insists that her MMA career is far from over.
“I’m not done in MMA,” Cyborg told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “MMA is my life and I love what I do. I’m the Bellator champion and for sure I’m going to defend my title. But the opportunity showed up. This is one of my dreams. When I did my first boxing fight it was my dream and just getting called, ‘Hey Cris, we’d like to have you on the card.’ So I just kept training and the opportunity came up and it was a dream come true.”
Cyborg is the reigning Bellator featherweight champion, having won the title from Julia Budd in 2020. Most recently, she won a unanimous decision in a rematch with Arlene Blencowe at Bellator 279, the final fight of her Bellator deal. Though Cyborg is officially a free agent, many felt Cyborg would inevitably re-sign with Bellator, given her longstanding ties with Bellator CEO Scott Coker and the promotion’s interest in retaining her services, and Cyborg agrees.
“Not yet,” Cyborg said when asked if she had re-signed. “After this fight I’m going to sit down and talk to Scott, but I’m Team Bellator.”
The question for Cyborg then becomes what comes next for her. The fight most fans wanted to see was a superfight against Kayla Harrison, but that bout took a massive blow when Harrison lost to Larissa Pacheco at the PFL Championships in November. Cyborg isn’t writing that fight off entirely though, saying it could still happen down the line. For now though, Cyborg hopes that her next MMA bout will be against Cat Zingano sometime next year.
“I know [Harrison’s] got two fights left with the PFL,” Cyborg said. “She can rematch Pacheco, she can fight Aspen Ladd — she just signed with the PFL — and then maybe she can come to Bellator.
“For me, I have a big fight next. Cat Zingano’s a big fight for me. She’s undefeated at 145, she beat Amanda Nunes, she beat Miesha Tate, and she beat a lot of good girls. I think she’s the next fight for me.”
Cyborg’s fight against Gabrielle Holloway takes place Saturday, Dec. 10 at the CHI Heath Center in Omaha, NE.
