Tidigare i oktober deltog Cris Cyborg i en intervju med FOX Sports 1 ’Speak For Yourself’, där hon öppet ställde frågan till Dana White och UFC om hon skulle bli behandlad bättre om hon var blond och hade blåa ögon. Cyborg spekulerar om att hennes etnicitet och utseende spelade en stor roll och att UFC tvekade till att marknadsföra henne som stjärna.
Dana White deltog under samma program i veckan och svarade då på Cyborgs uttalanden:
Let me ask you a question: what makes somebody a star? What has been done with Ronda (Rousey) that hasn’t been done with Cyborg, as far as being a star? Ronda is a world champion, had the belt and everything else. We don’t have a belt in that (featherweight) division. We don’t have that weight division for Cyborg … because there aren’t enough good women at 145 pounds to create an entire division.
I actually run the business, I actually know what’s going on. She can say it’s B.S. (that there aren’t enough women). I actually know.
Cyborg har stått obesegrad med 18 vinster sedan 2005. Hon gjorde nyligen sin debut i UFC då hon gick matcher i catchweight 140 lbs mot Leslie Smith och Lina Länsberg och segrade mot båda via knockout.
För bara några dagar sedan stod det klart att Rousey kommer tillbaka för att gå match mot Amanda Nunes. Cyborg blev besviken då hon under lång tid hoppats på en match mot den forne bantamviktsmästarinnnan, en match som som diskuterats mycket de senaste åren.
Det här berättade White:
Ronda Rousey makes a lot of money. She gets a lot of attention. She’s doing movies. She has all kinds of other sponsorship deals and all these other things outside of the Octagon too. And listen, other people look at them and say, ‘hey, I should have that too. Why do I not have that too?’ And of course, that’s my fault. You know what I mean? That’s my fault because it’s not happening.
But the reality is this: Cris Cyborg is devastatingly good. She’s been destroying everybody right now. Her popularity is actually starting to go [up]. She’s getting bigger. Everybody wants it right here, right now. It doesn’t happen that way. I promise you this, Ronda has to come in and fight on December 30th. Okay? Ronda has to win, and the girl that she’s fighting is no pushover. She’s nasty and tough and Ronda’s got a fight on her hands there.
She wins that fight, her and Cris Cyborg are eventually going to fight. Ronda wants that fight. It will be the biggest pay-per-view in UFC history.
We’ll see what happens. This thing’s got to play out first and we’ll see what happens.
