Cris Cyborg Taunts Ronda Rousey: Is Former UFC Champ Too Scared To Fight?


Cris Cyborg does not like Ronda Rousey, and she has made no secret of that for the last few years.

The former UFC Bantamweight Champion hasn’t really given her a lot of reason, frequently attacking the current Invicta FC Featherweight Champion for her PED scandal from a few years ago.

At one point, Ronda hit Cyborg (real name Cristiane Justino) for having “a history of coming in overweight to fights” — true — and that “she is a big old cheater and she’s been doping her whole life” — doping yes, but the “whole life” part is less provable.

In fact, Cris Cyborg has passed a battery of tests proving that she has been “clean” for quite some time.

Even so, in Rousey’s previous interview — when she was the champion — she said that the only way the fight would happen is if Cyborg came down to 135, adding a “I don’t owe her anything” for good measure.

That said, a lot has changed since Rousey made those comments in August 2012, reported here by Bloody Elbow.

Aside from the clean drug tests, Cris Cyborg has maintained her dominance over the 145-pound division at Invicta FC, and she has entered the UFC 198 card, which will be held in her home country of Brazil.

In other words, she is now on Rousey’s turf, and Rousey is no longer the dominant champion that she was — or the champion period, for that matter.

That ended in November 2015 when then-unbeaten Holly Holm turned the lights out with a throat kick and a series of finishing punches as Rousey lay helpless on the mat.

Holm then turned around and lost her very first title defense to long-time Rousey rival Miesha Tate, who will be fighting Amanda Nunes for the belt at UFC 200.

While Dana White has said that Ronda Rousey will be back before the end of the year, until recently the fighter hasn’t given many indications that she is ready to return.

Then, a recent video surfaced on TMZ of Rousey performing a beach workout. As one might expect, Cris Cyborg had something to say about it, as she did when Rousey lost her unbeaten streak.

When Cyborg saw the video, she trolled Rousey with this statement in a Cruz Show interview.

“I watched her last training. She was doing shadowboxing on the beach and her shadow won.”

This, of course, isn’t the first time that Cris Cyborg has had fun with Rousey’s recent reversals of fortune.

When Ronda came out of her extended hiatus to host Saturday Night Live, Cyborg tweeted this.

Not only was this a pretty vicious knock on Rousey’s mixed-review performance, it was also another dig about the giant hole in her game that gave Holm a knockout victory.

Throughout much of the Holm-Rousey fight, she tried to impose her will and brawl Holly into submission. Unfortunately for Ronda, Holm had over a decade of experience in a boxing ring and had amassed a reputation for the greatest active female boxer when she made the jump to MMA.

As for a potential Cris Cyborg and Ronda Rousey fight, Cyborg says that she still wants to do it, but Ronda has stayed noticeably quiet on the topic.

Now that she no longer has the belt as a reason, there is nothing to hold her back from meeting Cyborg at a catchweight. The fight still has a lot of value, though likely not as much as before Ronda’s loss.

But if Rousey can overcome her fear of stepping back into the octagon, she could have at least three high-dollar paydays waiting for her: a title fight with the winner of Tate-Nunes, a rematch against Holm, and, if she can conquer those two, a showdown with Cris Cyborg.

The unanswered question: where is Ronda’s head at, and will she be too scared to fight one or all of these opponents?

What do you think, readers?

Have fight fans seen the last of Rousey in competition, and if not, do you think she is running scared from Cris Cyborg? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via Cris Cyborg Facebook]

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