Cris Cyborg says Dana White blocked Miesha Tate from grappling her

Cris “Cyborg” Justino has held the women’s featherweight title in every major American MMA promotion at one point. Currently the Bellator MMA women’s featherweight champion, Cyborg recently revealed that she and former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate were considering a grappling match in Submission Underground until UFC president Dana White prevented it from happening.

“I’m not surprised,” Cyborg said on The Catch Up with Cris Cyborg & James Lynch. “He doesn’t want this to happen. She has a couple fights more, she says it’s not the end of the line, now she can have the opportunity to do this fight in the future. She said she’d really like to do [it] but you know the story. Dana wants nothing to do with Cyborg… But I believe in the future maybe the fans would like to watch.”

Cyborg last fought in the UFC in July 2019 defeating Felicia Spencer by unanimous decision in the UFC 240 co-main event. The fight was the final bout on her contract. Following the fight, White announced that the fight promotion would not negotiate a new contract and allowed the Brazilian to immediately start fielding offers from other organizations.

“The fighters don’t have forever. We have to use every moment of opportunity that we have,” she said. “Okay, your manager and you decide one thing is good for a career, [the promoter] is supposed to let it go, let them do it. There’s no help with the fighter. They’re gonna make extra money, extra publicity, extra matches, it’s going to be better. But I don’t know, I’m glad to be free of this. I’m free. I don’t have to ask him to do anything.”

White also recently prevented former two-division UFC champion Georges St-Pierre from boxing Oscar De La Hoya.

Khabib Nurmagomedov turned down $100 million offer to box Floyd Mayweather

[embedded content]