Miesha Tate doesn’t think UFC needs women’s featherweight division yet

While Invicta FC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg is 2-0 inside the Octagon, she is still primarily an Invicta FC fighter due to the fact that the UFC doesn’t have a women’s featherweight division. In her two Octagon appearances, Cyborg fought at a catchweight of 140 pounds, both times enduring horrific weight-cuts, and both times delivering spectacular TKO wins.

In her UFC debut, Cyborg finished Leslie Smith via first round TKO at UFC 198 earlier this year. In her second Octagon appearance, Cyborg faced off against Swedish striker Lina Lansberg, cutting nearly 10 pounds in 24 hours to make the contracted limit of 140 pounds. Despite that, Cyborg picked up yet another spectacular TKO win as she finished Lansberg and moved to 2-0 inside the Octagon.

While Cyborg has continued to call for the UFC to create a women’s featherweight division, UFC President Dana White has remained adamant that there isn’t enough depth at 145 for the promotion to create a women’s featherweight division.

During a recent media luncheon ahead of her UFC 205 fight with Raquel Pennington, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate spoke about the possibility of the UFC creating a women’s featherweight division:

“I personally think that 145 (featherweight) should either be in Invicta, or Cyborg should make the catchweight of 140, or go to 135 (bantamweight). I think putting a 145, should come behind adding a 125 (flyweight). So in order of precedence, I think 125 makes more sense before adding 145 in. The depth at 145 is still…it’s getting there, but I don’t think there’s enough 145ers to make a really quality 145 pound division yet.”

When asked whether she would ever consider dropping down to flyweight given that the UFC has held another women’s flyweight fight in the past, Tate said:

“Maybe. The last couple of times have been really strange, I’ve literally never had trouble in my life making weight, there was definitely some other factors that had to do with that. Dieting has been going great this camp. I’m light, I should be absolutely no problem, but I don’t see myself probably coming down to 125 in the near future unless it really is appealing financially. I’ll probably stay fat and happy at 135.”