Kayla Harrison and Cris ‘Cyborg’ Justino are the two most popular and impressive talents in women’s MMA that compete exclusively above the Bantamweight division and now the two may actually be crossing paths in a blockbuster fight. Harrison recently inked a new deal with PFL after turning down offers from every other major promotion, including Bellator; the one that currently has Cyborg as their Featherweight world champion. Of course, this re-signing meant that Harrison was back in her existing stomping grounds and many fans were left a little disheartened about the level of competition that she would likely be facing in the future.
PFL founder Donn Davis recently sat down with MMAMania to discuss his plans for the next few years as head of the promotion and the topic turned to Kayla Harrison and the potential for a fight against Cyborg:
“I’m not as confident about other people’s decisions because I respect that there’s a lot of different things that goes into what [people] decide,. Everybody has their own objectives and their own needs. What I am confident about is that fight happening. And that fight can happen two ways, Cris comes to PFL, or there’s a cross-promotion between PFL and Bellator. So to me, my confidence extends to that fight happening. Because from the PFL side, we’ll do that fight any which way. Pluto, Earth, pay-per-view, streaming, cross-promotion, not.”
“We will do that fight because fans want it, Kayla wants it, industry experts want it, so why not do it? So we’ll do it. And Kayla, she feels the exact same. The only reason it won’t happen is the people saying the most bluster about it, which has been Bellator and Cyborg get scared and won’t do it. That’s why I’m confident because I do think Cyborg wants to cement her legacy as the greatest of the great and there’s only one test left. I also think she’d like to be a five organization champion.”
As Davis mentions, Bellator have done cross-promotional events with RIZIN in the past so it stands to reason that they would be open to doing one with PFL if the numbers worked out correctly. Additionally, Cyborg doesn’t actually have that long left on her contract with the promotion either. Even if Bellator are resistant to the idea for some reason, there’s still another way that this fight might come to fruition in the future.
