Cris Cyborg on her game plan for Amanda Nunes: “I’m the pressure”
For years, many mixed martial arts fans have believed Cris Cyborg is the greatest female MMA fighter of all time.
And now after winning championships in Strikeforce, Invicta, and the UFC, Cyborg has cemented her place as MMA’s greatest female fighter.
At UFC 232, Cyborg will get another chance to prove why she is the greatest female fighter on the planet, when she defends her UFC women’s featherweight title against the UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes.
Going into the fight, Cyborg understands that as a fighter, Nunes has made her name from her ability to administer heavy physical pressure on her opponents.
However, when it comes to the UFC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, Nunes is going to be facing a fighter on a whole other different level, even when you compare to UFC champions of the past.
Cyborg has said recently, Nunes will be ready to withstand what she will bring to the octagon when they square off in their super fight at UFC 232.
“I train for everything, I have five rounds,” Cyborg said at Friday’s UFC 232 press conference in New York City. “I watch a couple fights with Amanda and I know she like to do pressure but she doesn’t like when fighters put pressure on her. I’m the pressure. When she puts her best punch on me. I’m gonna be the pressure. She’s going to feel that.”
Speaking of the pressure, Cyborg attempted to apply some verbal pressure to Amanda Nunes on social media a while back in hopes of making this fight happen a lot sooner rather than later, in which Nunes successfully avoided.
But the fact remains, it’s taken nearly a year since the time when Nunes called Cyborg out after her victory over Holly Holm, and thus the fight is finally gonna transpire.
“We don’t have any problem,” Cyborg said. “Just accept the fight with her when I fight Holly Holm, and she ask for nine months for training for this fight, and I think when you’ve calling somebody out, you have to be ready, not nine months to be ready.”
Cyborg stated she believes she has about five good MMA fights left in her career, in which she then went into detail of the potential match ups she would have chose if the Amanda Nunes fight had not come to fruition.
“The first thing UFC called me and my manager for fight Amanda Sept. 8,” Cyborg said. “And the other thing was fight on three weeks notice for Amanda in July. And then nothing happened. And I accept to fight her Sept. 8. after she called me out six months before and she said no I signed a deal to fight December. You’re not fighting, I have no other options but to train and wait.”
During the UFC 232 press conference, Cyborg did not hold back in expressing her true feelings towards Nunes, including calling her out her for withdrawing from her originally scheduled fight with Valentina Shevchenko on the morning of the fight.
“Let’s do this,” Cyborg said. “Let’s see. You need nine months to train for that. Keep work hard, and make sure you’ll be there, because last time, you pull out before fights. Make sure you’re going to be there. I’ll believe when you’re in the cage, be in the cage and close the door, I know you’re going to be there. I hear this story before, to wait, and then don’t fight.”
