Christine Ferea successfully defended her BKFC World Women’s Flyweight Championship title for the third time. With this latest victory adding to her winning streak, the champ took the chance to call out Cris Cyborg again.
Ferea defeated Bec Rawlings via unanimous decision at BKFC 56 this weekend. Both fighters managed to send and land punches at each other, but Ferea’s shots made more impact. By the end of the fight, the judges revealed their scorecards of 50-45, 50-45, and 50-45, which all favored Ferea.
During her interview, the champ took the shot to call out her “idol” to face her in her own sport.
“She’s the one that I looked up to young in my career,” Ferea said. “And they say one day you have to fight the people that were kind of like your idol. I definitely want Cris Cyborg. I think I’ll mop her up in here.”
The callout follows Ferea’s earlier statement about her intent to face the Bellator champ. BKFC president Dave Feldman confirmed Ferea’s plan and shared that Cyborg herself even made a call a long time ago. The executive also enthused about the idea of Cyborg fighting under his promotion company, saying they are considering it.
“[Christine Ferea] said, ‘Hey boss, I want to fight Cris Cyborg,’ and the funny thing is Cris Cyborg actually reached out to us,” Feldman told MMA Fighting in a recent interview. “It’s something that I’m not going to say it’s definitely happening, but it’s something that could be in the cards for us.
“I mean, imagine Cris Cyborg throwing down bare-knuckle. That would be unbelievable. And against someone like Christine Ferea, who doesn’t like to back up and just likes to walk through her opponents, I think it could be a very, very exciting matchup. I think that’s something the fans could get very excited about.”
“I didn’t talk to her but she reached out and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to do a bare-knuckle [fight],’” Feldman said. “I didn’t reach out because I wasn’t ready yet, but we’ll see what happens after this fight and we’ll definitely reach out and see if we can make something happen.”
While Feldman’s excitement about the proposal should sound good news for Ferea, the fighter would still have to wait and get in line in order to fight Cyborg. Aside from her upcoming boxing fight against Kelsey Wickstrum, Cyborg is being targeted by Kayla Harrison and Larissa Pacheco, with the PFL revealing the plan is to prioritize the latter first. Luckily for Ferea, a cross-over fight between her and Cyborg is not impossible since Bellator already did it with Michael Page for a BKFC fight against Mike Perry in 2022.
