Dana White Has Released Cris Cyborg From The UFC In The Midst Of An Ugly "He-Said She-Said"

After months and months and months of talking about whether or not Amanda Nunes vs Cris Cyborg II would ever happen, Dana White has finally given us an answer: no.

In the midst of a “he-said she-said” between the UFC President and the Former UFC Featherweight Champion – one that was starting to get ugly, at that, with Cyborg throwing words like “transphobic” at Dana, citing some harsh comments he had made about her in the past – Dana White has decided to throw in the towel and release Cyborg from her UFC contract. I guess eventually, the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze for him, as they’ve never had a good relationship, but it had gotten particularly rocky in recent months. Immediately following the above interview dropping, Dana was crucified for his sins by all of Twitter (and poor Laura Sanko got dragged into the mud as well)…

…and I was confused.

Sure, I’ve obviously got a pretty great relationship with Dana at this point, and you could say this is my bias shining through, that’s fine, but I just didn’t quite understand why everyone had so definitively labeled him the bad guy already (aside from the whole defense of saying Cyborg looked like Wanderlei Silva back in the day, I guess…I obviously understood why some took umbrage with that). I tweeted that I’d like to get all the facts before I started pointing fingers at anyone and obviously that wasn’t met with much kindness either.

Oh well!

I’m with everybody in saying it seemed like the fight would happen, FOR SURE…

BUT, Dana has never had a great relationship with Cyborg, she’s got some of the worst management/representation in mixed martial arts, and she was on the last fight of her deal. That trifecta ain’t great! Now, add in the fact that after all of this, knowing the relationship isn’t great, knowing she’s on her last fight of her deal, knowing that Dana is leaning into negotiation tactics some would qualify as “carny” by burying Cyborg in interviews, acting like she didn’t want the second Amanda Nunes fight – which ain’t cool, that’s fair – Cyborg (or whoever represents her) goes out and posts a video on her YouTube revealing her “confrontation” with Dana White where they completely doctored when he said with subtitles, making it seem like he told her that whenever he’s talking about her, he’s not telling the truth.

Tell ya what – that gets you fired prrrrrretty much anywhere! I’m sorry, but it just does, and I guarantee this was a factor in the company’s final decision to release Cyborg, being she put out a public apology for doctoring the footage following her release…

I would say Cyborg’s no saint and Dana’s not the devil, ladies and gentlemen. This was simply a relationship doomed from the start playing out as predictably as possible. Sure, there were petty tactics on display, but from both sides – not just one. Hopefully Cyborg finds success in Bellator or wherever else she signs.