Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino has a new UFC 214 opponent after her original foe, Invicta FC featherweight champion Megan Anderson, withdrew from the event for personal reasons.
Invicta FC bantamweight champion Tonya Evinger was named as Anderson’s replacement.
Justino and Evinger will compete for the vacant UFC women’s featherweight title. The women’s 145-pound division was introduced by the UFC with a championship fight at UFC 208 in February where Germaine de Randamie won a controversial decision over Holly Holm to earn the inaugural title. However, de Randamie never defended her belt, refused to fight Justino, and recently said she had planned on returning to the 135-pound bantamweight division, so the promotion stripped the Dutch fighter of the belt.
Evinger (19–5, 1 NC) hasn’t lost since 2011. She was submitted by Yana Kunitskaya with an armbar this past November but that loss was overturned and changed to a no contest because the referee gave Evinger a warning for a foul she wasn’t committing, which in turn impacted her ability to defend the fight-finishing armbar. Evinger submitted Kunitskaya with a rear-naked choke in their March rematch.
Now the 36-year-old will test the waters in a different weight class against the consensus greatest women’s mixed martial artist of all-time.
“This is something I’ve thought about doing—going up to 145 pounds—just to get more competition,” Evinger told UFC.com. “I even said I’d go down to 125, but the opportunity was at 145 and I’m definitely willing to beat up on some ’45ers.”
Justino (17-1, 1 NC) is 2-0 in the UFC, finishing Lina Lansberg and Leslie Smith in 140-pound catchweight bouts in 2016 despite being a natural 145-pounder.
“I think I match up better than any of her other opponents,” Evinger added. “I think my style is really unpredictable. I’m tough and you’ve never seen me in a fight where I got my ass really beat up. I think I’m a perfect matchup; I drag people where they don’t want to go and I make a fight hard for them. I don’t fight other people’s fights. It’s a frame of mind. I’m just an old school wrestler and I think it’s just a frame of mind. We’re tough and we come out there to fight.”
UFC 214 takes place July 29 in Anaheim, Calif. It’s headlined by a light-heavyweight championship rematch between Daniel Cormier and Jon Jones.
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