UFC partner, Lorenzo Fertitta reinforces his desire to sign Cris Cyborg

Cyborg (photo) is the current Invicta FC featherweight champion. Photo: Disclosure. Photo: Esther Lin / STRIKEFORCE

The soap opera involving the possible arrival of Chris Cyborg to the UFC, something that has been speculated for a long time, gained another chapter this week. One of Ultimate's partners and executive director of the organization, Lorenzo Fertitta reinforced his desire to take the Brazilian to fight in the octagon, but highlighted that this would only be viable if the athlete manages to lose weight.

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In an interview with the North American website “ESPN”, Feritta revealed that he has been negotiating with Cyborg and his staff for the last two weeks. If successful, the Brazilian would continue to compete in the Invicta women's event, in which she is the current featherweight champion (up to 66 kg), in addition to leaving open a possible future fight against the UFC champion, Ronda Rousey.

Arriving in the UFC, however, would only happen if Cyborg proved capable of moving down to Ronda's weight class, whose limit is 61 kg. This is because the featherweight division does not exist in the UFC for women, which would also rule out a fight between the two at a catchweight.

“We certainly have an interest in seeing Cyborg fight for us. We feel that deep down there is a possibility that we could see a big fight between her and Ronda, but there are still a lot of things that need to happen. If Cyborg manages to drop in weight, I'm very optimistic that we'll be able to hold this fight, which needs to happen in the under-61 kg division. She needs to prove that she is capable of dropping weight before we run the risk of booking the fight. If she arrives and doesn’t make weight, it would be a disaster,” explained Fertitta.

Cyborg, 29 years old, has a record of 12 wins and one loss in professional MMA. Recently, the Brazilian declared that she would try to move down to the bantamweight division, but shortly after gave up, as she is recovering from an injury and would not like to cut weight during this period.

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