'Cyborg' Justino plans to drop weight and fight Ronda Rousey

'Cyborg' Justino plans to drop weight and fight Ronda Rousey

Cris "Cyborg" Justino is one of the very best MMA fighters not currently in the UFC. The former Strikeforce women's champion left the UFC before she could fight in the promotion, after its parent company (Zuffa) absorbed Strikeforce into itself, but without including the Brazilian's 145 pound class.

Since that time, Justino has fought - in kickboxing and in MMA, for the InvictaFC promotion - but has mostly been caught up in a war of words between her, UFC 135 pound champ Ronda Rousey and UFC president Dana White.

Insults have been hurled back and forth, but at the end of the day it's always just seemed that "Cyborg" would not fight Rousey on account of supposedly not being able to safely make the weight category. Now, according to InvictaFC owner Shannon Knapp, that has changed.

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"I haven't had that opportunity to talk to her, but definitely she has expressed that she wants to go down to 135 and she wants a shot at making her way over there to compete against Ronda," Knapp said during a recent interview with MMA Fighting.

"I'm going to do everything I can to help her with that."

Knapp and InvictaFC recently let their top 115 pound fighters go to the UFC to compete for a chance to become the first promotional champ of that weight division on an upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter.

If Justino is indeed committed to dropping down to 135 pounds, and InvictaFC isn't opposed to her going to the UFC, it's possible that women's MMA could get its biggest fight ever. Of course, for the time being, Rousey next defends her title July 5 against Alexis Davis. Should "Cyborg" make the drop down, Knapp said that she'd love to document the process and make a documentary of some sort available to fans.

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"We'll see what she wants to do first but I'm all about getting her on this platform and dropping down and documenting that," she said.

"Sharing that with the fans. Our goal is to give even more content that what we have given in the past, so we'll see what she wants to do, but you know what, we're definitely coming. She's going to make that move and we'll see what happens."

Follow Elias on Twitter @EliasCepeda & @YahooCagewriter