Former UFC women’s bantamweight champ and the first woman to defeat Ronda Rousey in her mixed martial arts (MMA) career, Holly ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ Holm, was reportedly offered the opportunity to take on Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino for the inaugural women’s featherweight title.
The bout never came to fruition as ‘Cyborg’ declined the bout due to concerns over weight cutting. Holm’s agent, Lenny Fresquez, has told MMA Fighting that those facts may be a little misinterpreted, as the Holm camp actually agreed to fight the Brazilian at 136 and 138 pounds, but nothing was ever able to get done:
"We make decisions as a team," Fresquez said. "We accepted the Cyborg fight up to a certain weight limit. On two different occasions, we went up on weight, and [Cyborg] turned them down."
"We did that as a team. As a team, we didn't want to go up as high 145 pounds."
‘Cyborg’ has now competed twice under the UFC’s banner as she made her debut for the promotion in May with a first-round TKO win over Leslie Smith at UFC 198 in Brazil, followed by a second round TKO victory over UFC newcomer Lina Lansberg at UFC Fight Night in September.
Also read: UFC News: Cris Cyborg on why she declined two 145-pound title fights
Holm has been on a downward spiral as she has now suffered two back to back losses to the likes of Miesha Tate, in which she lost her bantamweight title, and Valentina Shevchenko.
Justino has been campaigning for the introduction of a new women’s featherweight division for quite some time, as it is the division that she rules over in the Invicta FC promotion where she has dominated as well.
As for when we’ll see ‘Cyborg’ inside the Octagon next, we’ll just have to wait and see as she has declared that she will no longer fight at the catchweight of 140 pounds due to the difficulty of the weight cut.
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