There still seems to be some confusion regarding the state of the
women’s featherweight division in Bellator MMA.
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After her victory over Leah
McCourt in the in the Bellator
293 headliner on Friday night at the Pechanga Resort & Casino
in Temecula, Calif., Zingano indicated that the bout was initially
supposed to be for the vacant 145-pound belt. According to Bellator
president Scott Coker, that isn’t the case. Cristiane
Justino remains the promotion’s featherweight queen, and the
hope is to re-sign the Brazilian to a new contract sometime soon.
That, in turn, should set the stage for a long-awaited “Cyborg” vs.
Zigano title bout.
“I’m not sure what Cat heard because I didn’t talk to her directly,
but from the company’s standpoint this was always a three-round
elimination fight for the No. 1 contender spot,” Coker said at the
Bellator 293 post-fight press conference. “Cris Cyborg is still the
current champion, we still have her under contract right now. We
have her under a matching rights provision, we are negotiating with
her, and we expect to bring her back at some point this year.
“Now, it’s going to be a great fight. Hopefully we’ll put this
together with Cris in the next couple of weeks and her and Cat can
work on a big fight for the two of them to fight for Cris’ belt.
Somewhere along the line between my fight team and Ed Soares and
the dialogue, I told them, ‘I don’t know where this got lost,’ but
from our perspective it’s always been a three-round elimination
fight.”
However, when Zigano spoke to media at the presser, she reiterated
that the McCourt booking was initially offered as a championship
fight.
“This fight was initially offered to both me and Leah as a vacant
title fight, which would have been awesome,” Zingano said. “It’s
cool to see myself still in that No. 1 position right now and I
really don’t know what Bellator is going to do right now.
“It seems like it is a vacant title, it seems like there’s nobody
important above me at the moment, so I guess we just have to see
what happens with that.”
Justino hasn’t competed since April 2022, when she defended her
crown with a five-round verdict over Arlene
Blencowe at Bellator 279. The Brazilian has won a pair of
boxing matches since that last Bellator appearance.
For his part, Coker isn’t sure how such an offer would have been
made without his knowledge.
“I have no idea,” Coker said. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to
her, but if it was a title fight, a five-round championship fight,
I think I definitely would have known about it. There was never any
dialogue inside the company for that to happen.”