According to Tito Ortiz, if the much-awaited bout between UFC women‘s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg does not happen, Cyborg will not be to blame.
In a recent interview, Cyborg’s advisor and former manager revealed in that she is doing everything to make it to 135 pounds to make the epic fight with Rousey happen, even though 135 pounds is not a healthy weight for the said fighter.
According to Ortiz, Cris is doing everything that everyone is asking her to do. “And she’s trying to get down to 135. Realistically, 140 is still a challenge for her to get down that low. She’s gonna try. She’s doing everything possible and it seems like Ronda is doing zero possible. She’s just sitting back and collecting her checks,” he added.
Just recently, Rousey has knocked out Bethe Correia in a quick 34-second fight held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. With this win over Correia, Rousey has managed to hold on to her title once more. Aside from this, the possibility of Rousey going up against Tate for the third time is now coming into a reality. There aren’t too many women fighters in the UFC who have managed to qualify as a contender after Miesha Tate. In fact, there are a lot of people who do not even want another Rousey-Tate match because Rousey has not only defeated her once, but twice.
On the other hand, Cyborg doing the same damage to her opponents and managed to hold on to her title as the Invicta FC women’s featherweight champion. Just this month, Cyborg was able to knock Faith Van Duin in just merely 45 seconds. Rousey, on the other hand, has won her last two fights in a total of 30 seconds. With these statistics, there is no doubt that these two amazing fighters are the best in the industry.
Ortiz knows going up against Rousey will be the most important fight for Cyborg’s career. However, Ortiz says what he does not understand is why the UFC and Rousey don’t like to meet Cyborg half-way, which is at 140 pounds.
According to Ortiz, who is also going up against Liam McGeary for the Bellator light heavyweight title this September 19 in San Jose, there’s a different level between Cris, Ronda, and all the competition in both of their weights. “Ronda smashes everybody in her weight class. Cris smashes everybody in her weight class. So why not have the two girls that smash everybody in their weight class meet at a catchweight of 140 and compete?”, he added.
It was known that Cyborg had failed the drug testing last 2011 because she tested positive for the use of steroids. She was eventually stripped off her Strikeforce title. This incident never happened again, though. But Ronda Rousey is still firm on her statements that Cyborg should be able to reach the 135-pound weight without using illegal substances.
Ortiz doesn’t believe in Rousey’s statements, though. He says that the MMA bantamweight champion is just talking big; she is not backing up her statements by agreeing to the weight.
“She says I’ll fight any man, ‘I’ll fight Mayweather, I’ll fight Chris Weidman,’ but she’s afraid to fight Cris Cyborg. It sounds like excuses. Usually when someone is intimidated by someone and doesn’t want to fight them, they’ll find any excuse not to,” Ortiz concluded.
