Dana White: 'Cyborg' Justino turned down multiple UFC featherweight title fights

According to UFC President Dana White, Cristiane Justino could be in position to be a UFC champion. She just needed to stop turning down fights.

While appearing on the UFC Unfiltered podcast, White said the promotion offered Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) two fights for a new women’s featherweight championship but the Invicta FC champ turned down both opportunities.

“What’s crazy about that is, I offered Cris Cyborg a title fight at 145 pounds a month ago,” White said. “She had eight weeks to get ready for it, she said she couldn’t make the weight, said she couldn’t make 145 pounds. So then I offered her another 145-pound title fight for Brooklyn and she turned it down. She turned down two 145-pound title fights. One because she said she couldn’t make 145 pounds in eight weeks, and Joe Silva was like, ‘If she can’t make 145 pounds in eight weeks, 145 isn’t the right weight class for her either.’”

In a statement Justino provided to MMAFighting.com, Justino explained she had told the UFC the weight cuts were so brutal she needed a full 12-week camp to accept any bout.

That, she said, was her reasoning for turning down first a fight with former bantamweight champ Holly Holm (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) and then a bout with Germaine de Randamie (7-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC).

“You can see that I give no interviews after the fight,” the statement read. “I told UFC Brazil PR Lilian (Caparroz) that I wanted to cancel all my interviews and couldn’t travel. After all that, at home, I decided I would not fight at this weight anymore, that I would only fight at my division. And only with 12 weeks’ notice. For my last fight, they told me eight weeks before.

“I got a call from the UFC offering me another catchweight fight, and I said I would not fight at this weight anymore. I needed a break to get my health back to normal because my body was weak, I was anemic.

“After that, they invited me to fight again, but this time at my weight and for the belt, but with 10 weeks’ notice. Knowing that I was recovering, like I said, I told them I can fight anyone in March, but I need to take care of my body, and no mention of the fact that I’m dealing with severe depression and can’t have another brutal weight cut like before. This decision is more important than the belt or the division, I’m thinking about my health.”

White, for his part, seemed not to believe the issue had to do with cutting weight at all, saying he didn’t understand what was at the heart of Cyborg’s decision.

After all, the initial plan for the UFC was to help “Cyborg” get her body to a place where she could cut down weight and eventually fight then-bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey (12-1 MMA, 6-1 UFC) for the title.

“First of all, obviously when we did the deal with Cyborg we sat down with her and said, ‘Listen, if you can make it down to 135 pounds, maybe we can hire a dietitian and help you get there and get in the mix, get you a couple of fights with these girls and then fight Ronda for the title,’ and she was all in,” White said. “That’s why she signed the deal. Then she was having a hard time doing it, so she cut down to 140, then this whole thing about, ‘I can’t make 140 pounds.’ Finally, we just said, ‘(expletive) it, alright then, we’ll make a 145-pound title for you,’ and here we go. She said, ‘I can’t make 145 pounds in eight weeks.’

“This doesn’t have to do with weight. Obviously it has nothing to do with weight cutting. I don’t know what it has to do with, so we’re gonna figure it out.”

In her statement, Justino described “almost dying” during the cut for her last fight, a second-round TKO of Lina Lansberg at UFC Fight Night 95 (check out the video above to hear from Justino during the lead-up to that event).

The lead-up to the fight saw a bit of controversy when Justino took exception to dietitian George Lockhart’s decision to have her attempt to use a birth control pill to shed weight.

The Brazilian said she cut ties with Lockhart following the situation and would not use him in the future.

MMAjunkie spoke to Lockhart about the situation.

“I feel bad about it,” Lockhart said. “She’s like a sister to me, man. We worked together for like two-and-a-half years. There was a lot to the situation, and it sucks. But hopefully, she’s getting what she wanted. Hopefully in March, she’s fighting for the title, and more power to her.

“There are a couple of statements that I was curious about, but at the end of the day, I can come back and be like, this happened and this happened. But next thing I know, it just escalates and I’m in a war with my friend and former client, and nobody wins. She’s the first person that had something negative to say. It kind of sucks because she’s the one that I’ve spent a lot of time with, but I’m not going to start a fight now. You’ve got two sides of the story. Her side, my side, and the truth.”

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