UFC 240 Preview And Picks: Is This The End Of The Road For Cris Cyborg With The UFC?

The UFC women’s featherweight division is incredibly thin. The promotion lists a total of six competitors in the weight class on its website. Two of those fighters, Cris Cyborg and Felicia Spencer, meet in the co-main event of Saturday’s UFC 240 fight card and there’s a strong chance that one of them — win or lose — will not be with the UFC when she next steps into the cage. 

Cyborg, the ex-UFC women’s featherweight champion, is competing in the final fight on her UFC contract in Edmonton and all signs point to her, at the very least, exploring the free agency market when that contract officially expires.

Cyborg has never had a rosy relationship with UFC president Dana White and leading up to this fight, White is doing his best to paint Cyborg as someone who is afraid to fight the woman who took her title, two-division women’s champ Amanda Nunes.

“She loves me; we’re really good friends, her and I,” White said on Wednesday (via MMA Junkie). “She’s mad at me again for some reason. Listen: I’m not saying anything negative about Cyborg. She does not want to fight Amanda Nunes. That is a fact. Why she would be mad at me because she doesn’t want to fight Amanda Nunes is beyond me. I have no problem with Cris. I said many times earlier when she first came in there were obviously some things we had to squash and fix, and I thought we had done that. I’ve had a decent working relationship with her. Believe me, I’ve had much worse."

“I have no ill will toward her, and when I say she doesn’t want to fight Amanda, and I say that I don’t blame her, I’m not talking about her or being negative toward her. These are facts. Amanda Nunes wants to fight Cyborg. We want to make an Amanda Nunes vs. Cyborg fight. Cyborg does not. That’s a fact.”