Dawn of the Cyborg
With a championship belt won and bitter rival Rousey dethroned, Justino feels the time is finally right for her to dominate the UFC
LAS VEGAS — Cris “Cyborg” Justino’s desire to participate at the most elite level of mixed martial arts was so fierce she says “it took out my heart.”
Better late than never at age 32, the UFC’s new women’s featherweight champion, with a newly signed contract extension, has her first UFC pay-per-view main event Saturday night when she meets former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“I look at it like I’m in the perfect time in my career. I’m mature, getting better,” Justino said this week. “Everything is God’s plan. I kept training hard with everything that happened and now I’ve showed I can overcome. You want to rush and then you get frustrated. … Now, it’s right.”
That calm perspective is a far cry from the angst and tension that long hovered over Justino (18-1), who said she was training in MMA before major pro women’s fighting existed.
She lost her pro debut in 2005 in her native Brazil, then began a dominating run that has featured 16 knockouts and culminates on Saturday in her most high-profile fight yet.
Justino’s talent had long justified a spot in the UFC, but she didn’t debut with the promotion until 2016. And a feud with former champion Ronda Rousey never produced a much-anticipated fight, in part because they couldn’t agree on a weight to fight at, and President Dana White didn’t add a division higher than the 135-pound group until this year.
Justino once said she’d die if she had to cut to 135 pounds, cracking Thursday that a skeleton-face patch on her warmup jacket “was what I looked like when I fought at 140.”
“All my life, I have a lot of drama. This helps you to be mentally strong,” Justino said. “I use everything against me to motivate me to keep going.”
After winning the Strikeforce featherweight belt and submitting a positive sample for the banned steroid stanozolol in late 2011, Justino moved to the Invicta Fight Club and posted four firstround knockouts as a champion, fighting before crowds around 1,000.
Two months after Holm handed Rousey her first loss in a stunning knockout, White and then-UFC Chairman Lorenzo Fertitta watched Justino fight in person and signed her for non-title fights at 140 pounds.
“I just kept training hard and took the opportunities in the other events and said, ‘I can show [myself] and one day the opportunity [for a title fight] will be there,’ ” Justino said.
Holm (11-3) suffered her third straight loss since the Rousey fight, to Germaine de Randamie, in the UFC’s first featherweight fight in February. De Randamie pointed to Justino’s past positive drug test and balked at the UFC’s order to fight her next, so she was stripped of the belt.
Justino stepped in and knocked out Tonya Evinger to claim the belt in Anaheim in July. That bout was placed third on the card, under two men’s title fights. Saturday night is hers.
The bout has a compelling story line in that Holm vanquished Justino’s bitter rival Rousey and is a former champion boxer. Justino’s strategy relies on delivering punches complemented by knees and kicks. But now she confronts the most skilled stand-up fighter in women’s mixed martial arts.
In this training camp, Justino has consulted with unbeaten women’s welterweight boxing champion Cecilia Braekhus and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist Claressa Shields.
“It’s kind of hilarious to see these girls ganging up trying to beat Holly,” said Holm’s longtime manager, Lenny Fresquez. “It shows the insecurity of Cyborg. We don’t have to do that.”
Holm’s faster punching speed while being more astute at punching angles should set up a victory, Fresquez theorizes.
“Holly understands what this fight means to her legacy — the second belt — and she always has been that person who wants to fight the impossible,” Fresquez said. “Whoever we put her against, she never hesitates. I think she becomes the greatest female combat fighter of all time with a win.”
Justino could have such a claim by winning, too.
“I enjoy challenging myself and Holly has a lot of experience and determination,” Justino said. “We worked a lot on the fact we know Holly will run a lot, so we worked to be patient to find the time to finish the fight. We can use MMA, grappling, everything. It’s an MMA fight.
“I don’t pick a time to finish a fight. When I see the time, I finish.”
Should she defeat Holm, Justino has spoken of fighting Invicta featherweight champion Megan Anderson next. More compelling is the fact that countrywoman and UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes has expressed interest in fighting Justino.
“I never wanted to fight her because she’s Brazilian, but she’s challenging me. If she wants to do that, we can and it’d be special,” Justino said. “It’d break the hearts of Brazilians, but it’d be an amazing fight.”
Most of all, she wants to relish the long-delayed night finally reserved for her.
“I will be really happy when I hold this belt at this fight. It will be a new chapter in my career,” Justino said. “I am going to do an amazing job and the UFC is going to be proud of me as a champion.”
lance.pugmire@latimes.com Twitter: @latimespugmire