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Bellator Women's Featherweight Champion Cris Cyborg is currently a free agent in the world of mixed martial arts.
Scott Coker wants to have Cyborg re-sign with Bellator, while also booking her in a title defense against Cat Zingano.
“I’m not sure what Cat heard because I didn’t talk to her directly, but from the company’s standpoint this was always a three-round elimination fight for the No. 1 contender spot,” Coker said after Bellator 293 (transcript via Alexander K. Lee of MMA Fighting). “Cris Cyborg is still the current champion, we still have her under contract right now. We have her under a matching rights provision, we are negotiating with her, and we expect to bring her back at some point this year.
“Now, it’s going to be a great fight. Hopefully we’ll put this together with Cris in the next couple of weeks and her and Cat can work on a big fight for the two of them to fight for Cris’ belt. Somewhere along the line between my fight team and Ed Soares and the dialogue, I told them, ‘I don’t know where this got lost,’ but from our perspective it’s always been a three-round elimination fight.”
Cyborg last competed at Bellator 279 in April of 2022, defeating Arlene Blencowe by unanimous decision.
Coker was also impressed by Zingano's victory over Leah McCourt at Bellator 293.
“I honestly was really impressed with Cat Zingano,” Coker said. “They had a lot of great transitions back and forth. I didn’t know who was going to win, I thought it was going to be a great fight, but it turned out to be an amazing fight. I wouldn’t even mind running that back at some point, right? Come on, that was just fun to watch.
“To me, a great knockout at the end [of the main event], that was amazing, but to me that [co-main event] fight was the fight that really caught my eye, was how much resilience these ladies had and they had such a great fight and it was a great MMA fight, a great martial arts fight, so I enjoyed it.”
