Scott Coker Outlines Bellator’s Big Plans For Cris “Cyborg”

As many people expected would be the case, Cris “Cyborg” has signed with Bellator. Well, recently Bellator President Scott Coker outlined the promotions plans for “Cyborg”, and not surprisingly, they’re hoping to make extensive use of the star’s platform.

“Cyborg’s” split from the UFC

For much of 2019, there was a lot of talk about whether “Cyborg” was going to remain on the UFC roster. The former champ’s issues with Dana White were well documented, and as “Cyborg” approached the last fight of her deal – at UFC 240 in July – those issues flared up again. Then, following her win over Felicia Spencer and the incident regarding a video “Cyborg’s” team edited of her talking with White, the latter announced the UFC wouldn’t re-sign the star.

Bellator’s plans for the decorated fighter

Since “Cyborg” fought for Scott Coker when he was running Strikeforce, many folks predicted she would end up signing with Bellator. As you know, that turned out to be the case, and since then, Coker has confirmed “Cyborg” will receive an immediate fight with Bellator featherweight champ, Julia Budd.

While that news is not surprising, recently Coker told MMA Junkie, while discussing “Cyborg’s” desire to professionally box:

“MMA is going to be her first commitment, but if she wants to box, I’m all about it,” Coker said. “But we’re going to be a part of it. You might see her boxing on DAZN a couple times a year or once a year.”

So, this is pretty interesting to hear, especially when you consider that Dana White plans to start promote boxing events as well. In other words, if Bellator can facilitate some sort of agreement with DAZN, might other MMA stars see this as a perk? In terms of signing with Bellator? If the UFC doesn’t let fighters compete for ZUFFA Boxing?

Another issue “Cyborg” always had with the UFC was the fact they don’t have many featherweights signed, as she wanted to compete more often. While talking about that issue, Coker said this:

“We’re going to keep her much more active, and two, they’re not in the 145-pound weight class business, and we are,” he said. “So to me, it’s something I think that we’ve been growing this weight class for the last two, three years, and Cyborg is a great addition to it.

“She will have girls in her weight class to fight, whereas in the UFC, I think it was like, let’s see who we can sign to fight her for a one-off, or make people move up to fight her from a different weight class. But the commitment was never to start a 145-pound weight class…”

So, we’ll see how things go from here. If “Cyborg” can beat Budd and take the featherweight title, it sounds like we’ll be seeing a lot of the Brazilian star in the coming months.