Following a USADA violation, former Invicta FC world featherweight champion Cristiano “Cyborg” Justino was unable to compete for the inaugural UFC featherweight belt.
At UFC 208, former bantamweight champion Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie battled it out for the title. Randamie would go on to become the inaugural featherweight champion of the UFC.
Following the fight, many believed that the next step for Randamie would be a title defense against “Cyborg.” Justino’s dominant record in the MMA division brought attention from many when the UFC revealed the new featherweight class.
While Randamie called for an immediate rematch with Holly Holm, MMA veteran Bass Rutten seems to think that Randamie can trade with “Cyborg” just fine.
On a recent edition of The MMA Hour, as transcribed by MMA Fighting, Rutten mentioned that he had a little one on one time with the champion in some training.
“I saw this in her a long time ago. Fred Royers was her original coach, and he contacted me six years ago and he asked if she could come and train here, a few sessions with me. So she went over here and we trained a little bit, what she had to work on, because she’s a striker as well — a phenomenal striker — so I worked with her and then she went on.
“And I knew that, in the striking department — once you’re 47-0 and you’re in Holland, and you do it in Europe, it’s a different kind of level there, the striking, than it is overseas. It simply is. … The striking is just at a real high level because everybody is doing it. It’s almost like soccer. You’ve got gyms everywhere. Every week, there’s fights everywhere, in bars, in little sport gyms. Whatever it is. There’s a lot of Thai boxing, and because a lot of people do it, a lot of people are very good at it. So I knew that her striking was going to beat Holly Holm’s striking, although I’m very impressed with Holly Holm as well.”
Rutten is not just impressed with Randamie’s striking. He thinks she can take on “Cyborg” quite well.
“Jorina Baars, she’s from Holland, she beat Cyborg in Lion Fight. So yeah, I do think that [de Randamie] can hang with her. But I think once Cyborg gets ahold of her and she can throw her down, we’re going to have a big problem. [De Randamie] really wants to keep this fight standing against her, and keep the distance between them. You want to stay outside the distance just enough that you can counter, but do not go clinching with Cyborg. I think that’s a bad thing.” He said.
