UFC 222 is officially in the books, and here are some news and notes stemming from the post-fight press conference and post-fight interviews.
White Wants Cyborg vs. Nunes
UFC president Dana White told reporters in the post-fight press conference that he wants UFC women’s featherweight champion Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino to fight UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes next in a true superfight. Nunes is currently slated to fight Raquel Pennington in the main event of UFC 224, but White hinted the UFC may break that booking up to do the Cyborg/Nunes fight. The UFC is all about making the biggest money fights possible right now and no doubt this is a bigger fight. We’ll see if the UFC can negotiate the bout, or if they just let Nunes fight Pennington first and then talk about the Cyborg fight after.
White Confirms Ortega vs. Holloway Will Be Next
White also confirmed what we all already know when he said Brian Ortega will get the next title fight against UFC featherweight champion Max Holloway. Ortega brutally knocked out Frankie Edgar and is now on a seven-fight undefeated streak in the Octagon and he’s undefeated in his pro MMA career. Holloway has won 12-straight fights and the winner of this bout will easily be one of the top-five pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Holloway is still nursing the injury that made him pull out of the Edgar fight in the first place, but hopefully the Ortega vs. Holloway fight can happen sometime in the summer.
O’Malley Does Not Have Broken Foot
According to White, UFC bantamweight Sean O’Malley does not have a broken foot despite writhing in pain after his unanimous decision win over Andre Soukhamthath. If O’Malley did not suffer a major injury he will be extremely lucky as he looked to be in an incredible amount of pain following his “Fight of the Night” victory. When he does get healthy enough to fight again, expect the UFC to continue to push this kid on main cards as he has star written all over him.
Lombard Plans To Appeal DQ Loss
Hector Lombard suffered his fifth-consecutive loss inside the Octagon when he was disqualified for knocking out CB Dollaway with illegal punches after the bell in the first round. Lombard landed a brutal punch that knocked Dollaway out and the doctor stepped in to stop the fight. The referee ruled the result of the contest as a disqualification, but Lombard plans on appealing it. The reason for the appeal is that in Lombard’s view, though the ref did yell “time!” he did not step in between the fighters to put a stop to the action. Though Lombard is fully within his rights to appeal, it’s hard to see this result being overturned as the blows were clearly late. At this point, it will be interesting to see if the UFC even gives Lombard another fight.
