Cyborg and Tony Evinger are battling for the vacant UFC Women’s Featherweight Title tonight at UFC 214.
While they may disagree with who’ll win their fight at UFC 214, they both can agree in their feeling that former UFC Women’s Featherweight Champion Germaine De Randamie wasn’t a real champion.
The Brazilian claims that De Randamie wasn’t the real champion because she never wanted to defend the belt against her.
“I have nothing against her, just that I don’t think she’s the champion,” Cyborg said at the UFC 214 open workouts. “She never fight at 145, she go fight for the belt, and she knew if she was going to fight for the belt, she was supposed to fight me, and she said, ‘No, I hurt my hand, I don’t want to fight her.’ I don’t know, when you hold the belt you fight whoever for the belt.”
Evinger is making her UFC debut in this fight and the only reason she (and Cyborg) is fighting for the belt right now is that De Randamie was stripped of the belt for refusing to fight Cyborg.
It was De Randamie’s refusal to fight Cyborg that lead Evinger to say she wasn’t a real champion.
“I think when you have the belt, you’re supposed to fight the best there is,” Evinger said at the UFC 214 open workouts. “That’s what being a world champion is, you fight everyone they put in front of you. You never say no to anybody, and I think in Germaine’s case, I think that she just, she knew she wasn’t really the champion, you know what I mean? I think she knew she wasn’t going to win that fight, or she didn’t have the confidence she was going to win that fight or whatever, so I think she pulled out for that reason.”
UFC 214 takes place on Saturday, July 29 from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California with Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.
