health issues during the weight cut<\/a>, remains fully focused on beating Cyborg on Aug. 22, \u201cthe opportunity I\u2019ve wanted my entire life\u201d against \u201ca huge name who needs no introduction\u201d as former UFC, Bellator, Invicta FC and Strikeforce titleholder. Yet, Vieira mentions names she would be thrilled to share the cage with in 2027.<\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s also Dakota [Ditcheva], who is a big name at 125,\u201d Vieira said. \u201cI can\u2019t make 125, unfortunately, but if she moved up to bantamweight, that\u2019s another fight I\u2019d like to have. She\u2019s a big name. Or Ronda [Rousey], too. I\u2019ve fought pretty much all the big names already. The only ones missing are Ronda and Amanda [Nunes].\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought about fighting at featherweight, but I wanted to become bantamweight champion first and then move up to featherweight,\u201d she continued. \u201cI\u2019m a big athlete. We always say that at the gym, I\u2019m a featherweight who fights at bantamweight. I have the size to transition between both divisions. Thankfully, I can still make bantamweight, whereas Cris can\u2019t. But yes, I\u2019ve always considered the possibility of fighting in the division above. It\u2019s just that when I was in the UFC, the division was kind of fading away and we didn\u2019t have the opportunity to fight there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vieira fought once at featherweight in the UFC, when a 135-pound bout with Macy Chiasson was move a division up after she suffered with abdominal cramp during fight week. Vieira said she felt \u201cstronger and had more punching power\u201d in that weight class, winning a decision over Chiasson. Doing a full camp at 145 pounds now, she expects a much better performance all around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m working with the strategy wizard, \u2018Ded\u00e9\u2019 [Andre Pederneiras],\u201d Vieira said. \u201cHe\u2019s already come up with a great strategy for us. It\u2019s a fight where I\u2019m going to have to use strategy and intelligence to my advantage, and that\u2019s something I usually do in my fights. I always fight according to a strategy, unless I see a very clear opportunity to finish the fight. Then I\u2019ll obviously go for it, but we have a good strategy in place, and it\u2019s going to lead me to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe this is going to be [Cris Cyborg\u2019s] last fight. It could be the last fight on her contract, but I think she has other big challenges ahead that depend a lot on other women being willing to fight her. But I\u2019m here to do my job, and I\u2019m training to spoil her plans on the 22nd. That\u2019s what I want, to become champion. It\u2019s my dream. I\u2019ve always waited for this opportunity to fight for a title, to fight for a world championship, and now I\u2019m getting it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ketlen Vieira will battle \u2018Grand Slam\u2019 featherweight MMA champion Cris Cyborg in her PFL debut Saturday, when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82],"class_list":["post-867768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}