The PFL is bringing one of the baddest women in the sport to the promotion as Cris “Cyborg” Justino will fight against the promotion’s featherweight champion, Larissa Pacheco, in the upcoming Oct. 19 pay-per-view.
Cyborg will risk her Bellator 🌱featherweight title against Pacheco, who will also risk her PFL title, and the winner will be a unified champion i൩n the 145-pound division.
The bout is slated to be the co-main event in the PFL’s second pay-per-view card, which will be headlined by Francis Ngannou vs. Renan Ferreira.
Cyborg, 39, told The Post she has three fights left on her contract, which will be the final fights of her combat sp🥃orts career, b൲e it in boxing or MMA.
“This fight with Larissa Pacheco is going to be the [start of the] legacy tour,” Cyborg said. “When I finish these three fights, I will complete the 20 years in my career, and I am going to retire.”
Pacheco figures to be the🌸 most competitive bout she has had in many years.
“I have much respect for Pacheco, I know she likes to grapple but I am a black belt in jiu-jitsu and I got my brown belt from [André] Galvão and my black belt from ‘Cobrinha’ [Rubens Charles], so she can try,” Cyborg said to the Post. “I am a very complete fighter.”
Should she get past this one unscathed, Cyborg plans to fight whomever the PFL puts in f🏅ronꦏt of her.
“I work everything,” Cyborg said of her skill set. “I competed in a lot of wrestling when I was 19 years old and now I like to put people down to (the mat) and work my grappling.”
Cyborg rarely went to mats in he𓂃r career, having won most of her fights by knockout as women 𓂃were terrified to fight her throughout her prime.
She is parti♔cularly happy to look back at her match with Gina Carano as one that launched her career.
“Every loss, I got better,” Cyborg, 27-2, told The Post. “When I fought against Gina Carano, it gave me the opportunity to show the Cyborg killing machine.”
Cyborg defeated Carano in 2009 via first-round knockout while a member of the Strikeforce promotio🤪n, which was later purchased by the UFC.
Cyborg ran through women’s MMA, having beaten everyone not named Amanda Nunes — whom she lost by KO to in just 57 seconds in 2018.
Undefeated ex-PFL 🌜fighter Kayla Harrison was long the hoped fight that would be made for Cyborg, but the timing never lined up for that one to come𓆏 to fruition.
Harrison has since left for the UFC, while Cyborg departed that promotion in 2019 when President Dana White infamously said, “Have a nice life” to one of the most polarizing stars in women’s MMA.
This might not be the Harrison fight, but Pacheco defeated Harrison by unanimous decision to win the PFL title, giving even more juice to this fascinating women’s featherweight bout.
