Bellator women's featherweight champion Cris Cyborg has her eyes on a future matchup with PFL women's lightweight Kayla Harrison.
Cyborg spoke with Ariel Helwani on the latest edition of The MMA Hour and discussed her recent callout of Harrison on Twitter, as well as why she's hopeful of a fight happening with the two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka in the near future.
“I think it’s going to be a great fight for me,” Cyborg said (h/t MMA Fighting). “She don’t need to come in at 145, we can fight at 155. She said [it was] the last fight on her contract, too, I saw and I believe maybe she’s going to sign with the UFC, but she can make more money than Amanda Nunes in PFL. I don’t know it’s going to be worth [it], but maybe we can do one fight, champion vs. champion. Scott Coker can be my co-promoter, maybe in the future. It’s a great fight.”
She continued on to say that she's not worried about Harrison's judo skills and takedown ability, even believing that former UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey was more dangerous in that regard. Cyborg also thinks there are obvious holes in the 2019 PFL women's lightweight champion's striking game that she can exploit.
“I was supposed to fight Ronda Rousey before and I was training for a camp,” Cyborg said. “The first thing you train in judo is learn to fall. Because when you’re going to fight judo, maybe you’re going to fall yes, but you have to know what to do after. I believe Ronda Rousey was more dangerous than Kayla. Her transitions were fast, her technique was fast and I know [Kayla] got a gold medal in the Olympics. But I think it’s a different level about the speed, about the transitions for the submissions. When you fight a judo girl, you can think about maybe you’re going to get taken down, it’s an MMA fight. But you cannot be afraid of getting taken down. She’s afraid to strike, too, when she fights the girls. Example is when she fights Cindy Dandois. Cindy Dandois came from judo, she’s really confident in her striking, she’s supposed to use the striking to fight Dandois but she’s not confident. She just did a judo takedown. It’s going to be a great fight for both I believe. I hear her talk. She’s very young, I don’t know if she knows the history of MMA. She just remind me of another judo girl who comes to MMA and I just look for what’s going to happen. It’s OK. It’s nice when people really think you’re more than you are. It’s hard. I don’t like to talk about myself. I prefer the fans, people see who they think I am but maybe she thinks she’s doing the right thing.”
The final :3️⃣0️⃣ of round 3️⃣@CrisCyborg and @LeslieSmith_GF are headed to their championship rounds LIVE on @SHOSports NOW.
— BellatorMMA (@BellatorMMA) May 22, 2021
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