Cat Zingano had a firm response to Cris Cyborg’s suggestion that “Alpha” has been ducking her.
Speaking during Wednesday’s Bellator 293 media day, Zingano (13-4) made it clear that not only is she not ducking Cyborg, she couldn’t if she wanted to— because Cyborg isn’t under contract at the moment.
“She’s not even with the promotion, so I don’t know how I can duck someone— she tells me to sign a contract, but she has two contracts to sign to even get back in the promotion,” an exasperated Zingano exclaimed.
“I feel like she’s kind of a crazy lady yelling from the street corner right now, just trying to get anyone to talk to her, anyone to pay attention to her,” the former UFC title challenger and current Bellator star stated. “She’s always complaining, she’s always got something negative to say. At this point I just kind of ignore her, and once those real conversations start happening, then we can do something about it. But right now it’s just noise. She’s noisy.”
Cyborg vs. Zingano feels like the biggest women’s featherweight fight the company could make. But despite Zingano arriving in the company years ago and winning all of her fights to date, the bout has never materialized. Zingano has brought up drug testing concerns in the past, and now Cyborg remains in negotiations with the company.
It leaves the women’s featherweight division at a standstill — as perhaps best underscored by the changing terms of Zingano’s fight this Friday against Leah McCourt. That, said Zingano, was supposed to be for a belt; now she’s not sure where a win will leave her.
“That’s kind of the question. It’s— we were both told that this was going to be a title fight, at a certain point they were saying it’s a vacant title fight, then they said it’s an interim title fight, and now they’re like ‘you know what, let’s have it be regular, and see how it goes and see what happens there,'” revealed Zingano. “So right now I’ve just got to focus on one fight at a time, one breath at a time, one move at a time, and get through the things I have control over. And we’ll have to see what happens after that.”
Watch the full Bellator 293 media day appearance by Cat Zingano above.
