Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg Negotiations for UFC Show !!

ESPN reported that Lorenzo Fertitta is back negotiating a Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg fight. Fertitta made it clear in his comments that the fight would have to be at 135 pounds, and that Cyborg would have to prove she could make 135 first. Cyborg had said recently that she had given up on trying to make 135 and pushed for a fight at 140 with Rousey.

Invicta just announced that Cyborg will be fighting on 2/27, so there is a weekend doubleheader with Invicta in Los Angeles at the Shrine Auditorium the night before UFC at the Staples Center in a show where Rousey defends her title against Cat Zingano. It would make all the sense in the world, if Rousey wins, and on paper, Zingano is the toughest opponent Rousey has ever faced, for them to shoot the angle or make the announcement for the match in Los Angeles. Cyborg will defend her Invicta featherweight title against Charmaine Tweet, who is 37 years old and has a 6-4 record. And yes, this is a mismatch. Tweet fought Ronda Rousey on July 17, 2011, in Rousey’s second pro fight, which ended in 49 seconds with an armbar. This is Cyborg’s first fight since July 13, 2013, when she dominated Marloes Coenen due to her power to retain her title, winning via fourth round stoppage. Most of the show features newcomers, since UFC has grabbed most of the top strawweights and bantamweights.

So they are replenishing the strawweight division with Alexa Grasso (6-0) from Mexico vs. Mizuki Inoue (8-3) from Japan, DeAnna Bennett (6-0) vs. Lynn Alvarez (6-3), Jamie Moyle (1-0) vs. J.J. Aldrich (1-0), and Brianna Van Buren (3-1) vs. Amy Montenegro (5-1). They also have Irene Aldana (4-1) vs. Melanie LaCroix (3-2 at bantamweight and Christine Stanley (3-1) vs. Emily Corso (4-0) and Kristi Lopez (2-0) vs. Aspen Ladd (0-0) at flyweight. As far as media publicity goes, and overall interest, it makes sense across the board to run the night before a major UFC show in the same market. Most of the media is already in town and fans that come early have a second show to attend. The negative is that if they run a weekend without a UFC show, UFC can help promote it more, and while UFC will mention it as the second show, most of the UFC promotional work will be geared toward the big show. When UFC ran two straight nights in Las Vegas in July, the second show ended up doing far better as far as a live gate went than such a show would have done on its own. For ratings, it probably wasn’t helped by coming the day after a big PPV.