Dana White releasing Cris Cyborg from the UFC, will not offer her a new contract
Cris Cyborg will not be returning to the UFC.
On Friday, UFC president Dana White released an interview where he stated that he would not be making the former featherweight champion a new offer and she is now free and clear to sign with a new promotion after waiving her three-month negotiating period with the UFC.
Cyborg completed her most recent deal with the UFC following her win against Felicia Spencer but she was still technically under contract for the next three months for an exclusive negotiating period.
“All this other bulls—t she’s putting out there, again, to avoid fighting Amanda Nunes. Message received, I get it. I’m going to release her from her contract. I will not match any offers. She is free and clear to go to Bellator or any of these other organizations and fight these easy fights that she wants. Done. Done deal,” White said on Friday.
“I will literally today have my lawyer draft a letter to her team that she is free and clear to go wherever she wants. We’re out of the Cyborg business.”
The contentious relationship between White and Cyborg has been ratcheted up in recent days after the Brazilian won her fight at UFC 240 this past weekend.
In the aftermath of that victory, Cyborg accused White of bullying her and damaging her brand by constantly making statements that she was avoiding a potential rematch against Amanda Nunes after falling to her in their first fight in just 51-seconds.
Cyborg brought up numerous past comments from White where he disparaged her publicly and demanded an apology from the UFC president before she would consider re-signing with the organization.
White fired back in his interview first by pointing out the context of those past comments while adding that he believed those previous issues had been sorted out long ago.
“First of all, I don’t have this horrible relationship with Cyborg,” White explained. “Things were said before she came into the UFC but I think we’ve covered that and her and I have put that type of stuff behind us but the stuff that’s being said now and I was in the gym yesterday and “Outside the Lines” story was absolutely ridiculous.
“Completely taken out of context.”
White also attempted to clarify his past comments about Cyborg where she referenced statements such as the UFC president saying that she looked like “Wanderlei Silva in a dress.”
“In context the way that everything happened in the old days with Cyborg this started in 2012 when she tested positive for using steroids by the California Athletic Commission. In 2014, Cyborg did an interview with Kevin Iole where she admitted to cheating and taking steroids. In April 2014, Iole then did an interview with Ronda Rousey and Ronda said ‘I don’t care if she injects horse semen into her eyeballs, I’ll still fight her, I’m not speaking for the rest of the 135-pound division, I’m just speaking for myself’. Then Ronda said that woman has taken so many drugs that she’s not a woman anymore, she’s an it,” White explained.
“So then once she said that, I was doing a media scrum after a fight, again this is in 2014, and I was asked about Ronda’s comments, about what Ronda had said about Cyborg. The media was asking me if I thought it was insensitive and wanted me to comment on it and I said this is the fight business. Mean things are said. Ronda and Cyborg had been going back and forth saying a lot of things about each other and the fact of the matter was Cyborg did cheat and she did take steroids. She took the same performance enhancing drug that Ben Johnson won the Olympics with. It’s a very dangerous steroid that she was on and you’re talking about a time when we were trying to clean up the sport.
“Then they were asking about Cyborg and I said to the media ‘guys did you see her at the MMA awards? Did you not think she was on steroids? She got up to get up to get her award and she walks up the stairs and I was saying that she looked like Wanderlei Silva in a dress. What I meant was she had the same physique as Wanderlei Silva. Then one month later Wanderlei Silva evades a drug test and gets a three year suspension from the sport.”
White closed out his comments by saying that he never attempted to bully Cyborg but he also believed that whatever bad blood they had between them was settled long after she was offered a contract to join the UFC roster.
“I never came out and bullied or said anything about Cyborg,” Whtie said. “I was asked a question by the media. So now for hacks to throw up a 15 second clip of me saying that is taken completely out of context and we talked about this, Cyborg and I, before she came in the UFC. Let’s not forget, we signed her in 2015 to a deal with Invicta and then brought her into the UFC in 2015.
“It’s 2019. What is this narrative? Where is this coming from? It’s an absolute smoke screen to not fight Amanda Nunes.”
Whatever the case may be, White says he’s done dealing with Cyborg and she is now free to join another promotion.
“I don’t hate Cyborg and I’m not trying to destroy Cyborg, all this craziness that she’s talking,” White said. “Do you know how many fighters I’ve dealt with over the years, people that I really didn’t like like Tito [Ortiz]? Tito doesn’t like me and I don’t like Tito and we haven’t and we didn’t but we still got fights done. We still did business.”