Cris Cyborg was not surprised to listen to the rationale why Ronda Rousey’s talks with the UFC collapsed.
Rousey is about to make her mixed martial arts comeback after almost a decade away from the game on May 16.
Headlining the very first MMA event to be broadcast on Netflix, Rousey will fight Gina Carano, who herself is making a comeback after a good longer stint away from the cage.
After news of the fight emerged this week, many immediately questioned why the clash between women’s MMA pioneers shouldn’t be happening under the UFC banner. Because it seems, Rousey did approach Dana White a couple of UFC return, but negotiations collapsed after the top of the ESPN deal and the pay-per-view era.
“They didn’t need to set a precedent of giving me the guaranteed money that I deserve because once I raise that tide it lifts all of the boats,” Rousey said on The Jim Rome Show.
“They simply made a $7.7 billion deal at Paramount, so it’s of their best interest actually to not placed on the perfect fights possible but to spend as little money as possible so that they can keep it,” she added.
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Cris Cyborg says Ronda Rousey’s UFC fighter pay take demonstrates why she left
Because the Netflix event was announced, Cyborg has been targeting Rousey on social media. Nonetheless, she recently took a break from the trash check with back her longtime rival’s remarks about UFC pay.
After ‘Rowdy’ said the UFC is concentrated on cost-effective fights somewhat than the largest possible matchups, Cyborg said the identical mindset is what led to her leaving the promotion for Bellator MMA in 2019.
“I had an identical experience after the Nunes fight when the UFC went to ESPN,” Cyborg wrote on X.
“My team felt PPV was a dying revenue model and was negotiating on the next guaranteed.
“Ultimately we were told they weren’t going to regulate the revenue model which led to me signing with Bellator,” she added.
Cyborg signed the ‘largest contract in women’s MMA history’ when she put pen to paper on a cope with Bellator following a hostile UFC departure.
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Ronda Rousey’s comments must have UFC fans concerned
The UFC’s $7.7 billion broadcast cope with Paramount kicked off in the beginning of 2026, but things haven’t began perfectly.
With the schedule laid out for the primary quarter of 2026 and parts of the second, the UFC is coming under scrutiny for the standard of this yr’s cards up to now.
Only one undisputed divisional title fight will happen across the primary three numbered events, and that was the controversial rematch between Alexander Volkanovski and Diego Lopes.
Current criticism is essentially centered on the skinny UFC 326 card on March 7, headlined by the symbolic BMF belt.
Now, with Rousey suggesting the UFC is actively against spending more cash than obligatory to make fight cards under the Paramount deal, the fans’ concern ought to be growing.