Cris Cyborg will return to mixed martial arts for one final fight.<\/p>\n
The Professional Fighters League women\u2019s featherweight champion will defend her title against UFC veteran Ketlen Vieira, the organization announced. The fight will headline a card on Aug. 22 at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Fla.<\/p>\n
Cyborg, whose name is Cristiane Justino but uses her moniker professionally, won the inaugural PFL title when she submitted Sara Collins in France in December.<\/p>\n
The combat sports legend from Brazil, who also won UFC, Strikeforce, Invicta and Bellator MMA titles during her two-decade fighting career, will be 41 years old by the time her fight with Viera happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cPFL Tampa will be a special event as it hosts the retirement fight for our champion, Cris Cyborg. She is a pioneer of not just women\u2019s MMA, but mixed martial arts as a whole, and it has been a privilege for PFL to have her as a deserving champion\u201d the promotion’s CEO John Martin said in an official press release. \u201cNow she headlines one final time in the PFL cage and will stand across from a proven challenger in Ketlen Vieira, who has one mission: ruin the goodbye and take the title. This is the conclusion to the storied career of Cyborg, and I can\u2019t wait to be there cageside to witness her create MMA history for the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Viera is a new PFL signing who recently completed a 15-fight run in the UFC that was capped off by a win over Jacqueline Cavalcanti in May. Viera\u2019s past 10 appearances have all gone the distance, while Cyborg has only required judges’ decisions six times during her MMA career.<\/p>\n
The 34-year-old from Brazil is a jiu-jitsu and judo black belt with notable wins over past UFC champions Holly Holm and Miesha Tate, plus competitive decision losses to Raquel Pennington and reigning UFC 135-pound champion Kayla Harrison.<\/p>\n
Cyborg has a 29-2 professional MMA record. She lost her first pro bout in 2005 before going on a 13-year unbeaten streak.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s MMA pioneer earned victories over Gina Carano, Marloes Coenen and all other top fighters in the 145-pound division early in her career and eventually joined the UFC in 2016 after the organization began expanding its women’s roster.<\/p>\n
Cyborg began her UFC run 5-0 with five KO\/TKO wins en route to becoming the featherweight champion, but then lost the belt when she was stopped by Amanda Nunes in their champion vs. champion meeting in 2018.<\/p>\n
After leaving the UFC in 2019 following a non-title win over Felicia Spencer, Cyborg joined the now-defunct Bellator organization, where she went 6-0 before that brand folded. Cyborg has gone 2-0 under the PFL banner since debuting in October of 2024. Cyborg\u2019s first PFL win was over the dangerous Larissa Pacheco, who\u2019s the only woman to date to hold a win over Kayla Harrison.<\/p>\n
Cyborg has competed in only four MMA bouts over the past four years, but has also amassed a 7-0 professional boxing record and has been campaigning for a fight with boxing great and multi-weight champion Claressa Shields.<\/p>\n
No other matchups were announced for the Aug. 22 PFL Tampa card, but it is expected to be filled out in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cris Cyborg will return to mixed martial arts for one final fight. The Professional Fighters League women\u2019s featherweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-759624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}