It's not often that an all-time great in one sport will, in midstream, try another. And yes, I remember Michael Jordan's fling at baseball.
Cris "Cyborg" Justino is one of the two or three greatest female mixed martial artists ever, but at 38, she still has a love for fighting. She loves it so much that on Friday at the Pechanga Casino & Resort in Temecula, Calif., she'll switch sports for a night and box Kelsey Wickstrum.
"I stayed training over Christmas and through the end of the year getting ready for this fight," she told keviniole.com. "It will be cool and I'm excited about it. Fighting is in my heart. It motivates me. It's keeping me alive. It's what I love to do."
The bout will stream on spectationsports.com. She said that because she is a striker and her MMA training is so varied, she feels comfortable trying to box. She wants to test herself and with a lull in the schedule -- or a lull at least at the time she accepted the bout in November --- she accepted the super welterweight fight against the 2-0 Wickstrum.
"The reality is I train mixed martial arts, but I have fought before and I do wrestling, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai a lot, but I'd never had a boxing fight," she said. "My dream was to have a boxing fight -- Just one! -- and that was it. But this opportunity came up and it made sense. My main focus, of course, is MMA, but everything I do in boxing will help me in MMA. So this was a great opportunity to take a fight and get a chance and try to improve my boxing."
She said she plans to compete until she's 40, so at 38, she has roughly two more years. She's 27-2 in MMA, losing her pro debut in Erica Paes on May 17, 2005, and then to Amanda Nunes in a featherweight title match in Inglewood, California, at UFC 232 on Dec. 29, 2018. She's won world titles in the UFC, Bellator, Strikeforce and Invicta.
She's 7-1 in grappling competitions, 2-1 in Muay Thai and 2-0 in boxing.
She thought she'd be in the middle of training camp for a massive MMA bout with Kayla Harrison at this point, but the PFL announced its Super Fight division's Feb. 24 pay-per-view card on Tuesday and it did not include Cyborg versus Harrison. It was an odd choice because Cyborg and Harrison have been vocal about wanting to fight each other, and Harrison called out Cyborg after defeating Aspen Ladd on Nov. 24.
"I heard there's a girl in Bellator who thinks she's a bad bitch," Harrison said after defeating Ladd, referencing Cyborg. "Well, why don't we fight out?"
She said that PFL CEO Peter Murray called her during the holidays and asked if she wanted to fight Harrison. Cyborg said she said yes, but the fight wasn't made. There is apparently a debate over whether or not Harrison is a free agent. Harrison's manager, Ali Abdelaziz, declined to comment other than to say Harrison has never turned down a fight. Harrison did not respond to a call for comment from kevinole.com.
Donn Davis, the PFL CEO, said in an interivew on The MMA Hour that Harrison has one fight left on her contract. Sources close to Harrison said her side believes she's a free agent.
Judo Kayla “I don’t want to wait, I want to fight @criscyborg”
— CrisCyborg.Com (@criscyborg) January 17, 2024
… Feb 24th in Saudi Arabia.
Also Judo @KaylaH:
“I need more time”#CyborgHarrisonhttps://t.co/0MtigVKg66 https://t.co/LJzVKfWwv4
None of that's Cyborg's business. She was eager for the fight, she said, and is disappointed that, at least so far, it hasn't occurred.
"This fight has been talked about for three years and after her last fight, she called me out," Cyborg said. "So over Christmas, Peter from PFL contacted us and asked if I wanted to fight Kayla Harrison in the next event. I said yes and I told him, 'I have a boxing fight and I'll be in shape, so it's no problem [to fight Harrison on Feb. 24]."
It didn't occur and the card was announced without them on it, a loss for the fans.
Cyborg has moved on, and though she's hopeful talks can be resurrected. But her focus now is on her boxing match and staying as busy as possible, with as many big fights as she can make, over the next two years.
"When I was younger, I never thought this would be the way my life and [career] would go," she said. "But her I am. I love what I am doing and I want to take advantage of this talent that I have. I'm 38 and I want to have a child someday, and so I know that it has to happen pretty soon. I'll fight until I'm 40 and I just want to do the best I can and put on the best fights I can."