Germaine de Randamie talks Cris Cyborg’s place in featherweight title picture

This Saturday, in the main event of Brooklyn’s UFC 208 fight card, Holly Holm and Germaine De Randamie will fight for the inaugural UFC women’s UFC featherweight title in a highly anticipated showdown.

Ahead of the fight, there has been talk of where Invicta FC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg, who is also 2-0 in the Octagon in catchweight fights, fits into the title picture given her current case with USADA for a potential anti-doping violation. Prior to that however, Cyborg had been offered two women’s featherweight title fights however she turned both down after explaining that she would be unable to make weight so close to when her last fight was.

De Randamie spoke to MMAJunkie to discuss the situation:

“Cris got the offer to fight Holly, Cris got the offer to fight me, and she wasn’t able to,” de Randamie said. “If you’re a champion, you fight against everybody. Holly and I are going to fight, and one of us will decide who is the next No. 1. If one of us has to defend the title against Cris ‘Cyborg,’ it will be Cris ‘Cyborg’ who we defend the title against.

“(Holly and I are) going to fight, and no matter what people think, one of us will be the 145 champion. I think if you look at Holly’s credentials and my credentials, we’ve both accomplished a lot in the sport. We absolutely belong at the top.”

In regards to the fight, Germaine de Randamie knows she has to be on the top of her game when fighting the former women’s bantamweight champ:

“There’s no doubt in my mind that I have to be on top of my top game,” de Randamie said. “I have to perform. I cannot make a mistake. I understand a lot of people do not know a lot about my kickboxing career. Probably also because I’m not from the United States and I live in Europe, and the kickboxing scene in the United States is not as big as it is Europe.

“Winning a UFC belt will solidify (my career). In the past a lot of people have told me I couldn’t do it. I’m a believer that you can do anything you want in life. I want to win, and I want to solidify my career.”

on 2/9/2017.