Cris “Cyborg” Justino: Women’s Featherweight in the UFC Makes No Sense

So after UFC Fight Night 95, there’s been a lot of talk as of late regarding Cris “Cyborg” Justino fighting at 140 pounds in the UFC. Her issues with her weight cut for her fight on Saturday with Lina Lansberg were well documented. It looked painful and miserable. MMA is currently in an era where longstanding issues such as weight cutting are more scrutinized and under the microscope than ever before. In this writer’s opinion, having more regulations for weight cut when seeing how risky and dangerous cutting massive amounts of weight for combat sports can be, is an absolute necessity. Anthony Johnson, a current light heavyweight title contender, used to fight at 170 pounds in the UFC. Remember that? He’d be cutting down from a reported 220 pounds to get down to 170 pounds on fight week. Cutting that much weight for so long was detrimental to his career, and it ultimately caused him to get cut from the UFC. That’s when he got the wakeup call and realized he’s not a welterweight. The issue with Cyborg is a little more complex. For starters, the UFC has no women’s featherweight division. However, her documented issues with getting down to just 140 pounds to fight in the UFC has led to analysts such as Joe Rogan calling for a creation of a women’s featherweight division. Right now, such a creation doesn’t make any sense.

Now I said this week on the 411 Ground & Pound Radio podcast, but I never want to see Cyborg fighting at 140 pounds again. If she’s going to be fighting in the UFC at catchweights, 140 pounds shouldn’t happen again for her. Quite frankly, based on how she suffered during her weight cuts, 140 pounds should never happen again in the UFC. Quite frankly, based on how much weight Cyborg admitted she cuts, even 145 pounds might still be too low. Cyborg told MMAFighting.com that last week she flew into Brasilia for her fight with Lansberg at 168 pounds. Think about that. That’s a female almost cutting 30 pounds in about five days to make 140 pounds to fight last Saturday. That’s insane. It shouldn’t be allowed. It seems Cyborg has gotten so big in the offseason that even 145 pounds may still be too big of a cut for her. 155 pounds for her might be the safest.

Considering that Cyborg might still be splitting time in Invicta FC, where she still holds their featherweight title, it doesn’t seem to make much sense to essentially create a Cyborg division for the UFC. No matter what type of claims you claim about women’s bantamweight being the Ronda Rousey show, now we’re in a situation where that division is more competitive than ever. Rousey lost the title to Holly Holm, who lost the belt to Miesha Tate, who then lost the belt to Amanda Nunes.

I’m not saying Cyborg is even unbeatable at women’s featherweight. I imagine someone like Holly Holm could probably give her problems at a catchweight depending on how the fight goes. But the thought process seems to be to let Cyborg cut less weight so she can get more sacrificial lambs.

Let’s not forget. Women’s featherweight was a division created by Strikeforce in 2009 to accommodate Gina Carano vs. Cyborg. The fight happened, and it was a big event. However, the women’s featherweight division petered out and lost interest very quickly after that. Why? There was virtually no one for Cyborg to fight. The fights with Cyborg were not competitive. She beat Marloes Coenen, who is more of a natural bantamweight, then she beat an 8-7 fighter named Jan Finney. Then she beat Hiroko Yamanaka. All these fights were one-sided beat downs. There was little interest in this division after Cyborg vs. Carano happened. In fact, interest in women’s MMA was starting to wane quite a bit until Ronda Rousey came along. A big part of that was because Cyborg tested positive for PEDs for her fight with Yamanaka. Cyborg was promptly stripped of her title and forced to sit on the shelf for over a year.

The point is, there’s no depth right now at women’s featherweight to support a new division. And basically, it would yet again just be made so Cyborg can beat people up. At least when women’s bantamweight was brought over from Strikeforce to the UFC, outside of Rousey, there was a solid base of established women who could be brought in. Same thing with women’s strawweight. A lot of the fighters at women’s strawweight in the UFC who came on through The Ultimate Fighter had become established in Invicta FC. At least with women’s strawweight, there was a fairly established base of fighters to bring in, plus some talented longtime veterans such as Michelle Waterson and former WSOF strawweight champion Jessica Aguilar, who are both on the UFC roster now.

The women who could fight Cyborg at 145 pounds are mostly better served at bantamweight. Sure, some could move up to fight Cyborg in some big money fights. But then what about after those fights with Cyborg? Will they want to continue fighting each other at that weight? To be fair, it’s definitely possible. However, Cyborg will ultimately be the favorite for anyone who moves up to fight her if simply for her massive advantage in size, power and mass.

Instead of making a whole new division, the UFC should look into those special attraction type of fights for Cyborg, specifically, someone like Holly Holm. I imagine if the money was right that Holm would have no problem taking a big fight with Cyborg at a higher weight. I don’t necessarily see Holm beating Cyborg, but she at least has a style that could potentially allow her to have a slightly more competitive fight than Justino’s last two UFC opponents.

But at the end of the day, since Cyborg gets so big in the offseason, the UFC might have to even allow her to fight at 150-155 pounds next. A women’s lightweight division in the UFC seems even less likely.

Jeffrey Harris is 411mania’s resident Jack of All Trades and has covered MMA for the site since 2008. You can shoot him an e-mail at [email protected] or hit him up on Facebook. He also co-hosts the 411 Ground & Pound Radio podcast along with Robert Winfree. You can listen to the latest episode of the podcast in the player below.