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Scott Coker Believes UFC Never Truly Committed to Women's Featherweight Division



Bellator MMA President Scott Coker is glad he was able to sign free agent Cristiane Justino last month, and believes that her former employer, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, wasn’t a good fit because they didn’t have a plan for the division other than “Cris Cyborg” herself.

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Coker has previous history with Justino, having signed her when he was president of Strikeforce. “Cyborg” rose to prominence when she won the inaugural Strikeforce women's featherweight championship against Gina Carano back in August 2009, and Coker said he was happy to be able to reunite with the exciting Brazilian.

“It was a great day,” Coker told MMA Fighting. “I talked to [her agents] and I said look this is not something we have to rush but we want to be in the ‘Cyborg’ business and I think there’s a lot of familiarity because of the past relationship of her fighting for me when I owned Strikeforce.

“We worked out the numbers and we knew we’d be a great home for her.”

Despite “Cyborg” losing her UFC featherweight title to Amanda Nunes, Coker believes his new signing is still the greatest female fighter of all time.

“Listen, when you say she’s the greatest female fighter of all time, that’s a big statement. That’s a very bold statement but everybody knows it,” Coker said. “It’s not like ‘we don’t know this girl.’ Come on, we all know she is the ‘GOAT’ of female MMA and one of the pioneers.

“To be on the roster with Gegard [Mousasi] and Rory [MacDonald] and [Ryan] Bader and all the other stars, she’s arguably one of the biggest faces of MMA period, let alone in any particular league.”

During her time with the UFC, “Cyborg” regularly went on record claiming she wanted to fight more often, and Coker claims that won’t be an issue under the Bellator banner.

“It’s our job to keep her active, which I think we’ll be very successful,” Coker said. “I think really she hasn’t been active because I don’t think the UFC has ever been [committed] to the 145-pound weight class division. That’s not their business. They’re in the business of the lighter weights, but I don’t think they ever made the commitment to blow up the 145-pound weight class.

“The difference is we are in the 145-pound weight class female division, we’re in the business of females in that weight class.”

Coker must decide who he pits “Cyborg” against for her debut in Bellator with current featherweight champion Julia Budd touted as her first fight.

“It’s something honestly we’ve haven’t thought about. We haven’t made a determination who she’ll fight because we really haven’t sat down and talked to Julia about any details, about her next fight,” Coker said. “Honestly when we announced the signing, that signature came in at 11:32 a.m. on my computer. We announced it at 1 p.m. So really I’ve just been here and she was in Brazil. She’s in L.A. now so after this fight, we’ll sit down in L.A. and we’ll chat.”

“Julia is on an 11-fight win streak. She’s the current champ and I’ve been really proud of her development over the past few years,” Coker said. “Eventually, when they do fight, it’s going to be epic. It’s going to be a war.”
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