Holly Holm celebrates after defeating defending champion Ronda Rousey in the Women's Bantamweight Bout during the UFC 193 Australia event on November 15, 2015 at Etihad stadium in Melbourne, Australia. Holm (10-2) will meet Germaine de Randamie (6-3) in the main event of UFC 208 in New York. Photo by Joe Castro/EPA
For years, the fighter widely recognized as the best women's featherweight competitor in the world -- and, many also insisted, the overall best women's pound-for-pound fighter -- was Cris "Cyborg" Justino.
Justino reigned as 145-pound champion first in the Strikeforce promotion, then in the all-women's Invicta promotion. In 2016, she won a pair of fights at 140 pounds in the UFC, which didn't have a featherweight division. But as a fighter who walked around at 165 pounds, she couldn't get down to 135, were all the money fights were to be found at bantamweight with the likes of Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate.
Saturday, the UFC finally gets around to crowning a women's featherweight champion, but Justino won't be a part of the festivities.
Former bantamweight titleholder Holly Holm (10-2) of Albuquerque, N.M., will meet Germaine de Randamie (6-3) of San Jose by way of Holland in the main event of UFC 208 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Las fall, UFC president Dana White, frustrated with how negotiations fared for a potential fight between Holm and Justino, yanked the offer to Justino and gave it instead to the less-heralded de Randamie. Then, at the height of fan brushback against the idea of not including the best women's featherweight fighter ever into the first 145-pound title fight, Justino was flagged for a potential banned substance violation in an out-of-competition test administered by USADA. She is temporarily suspended pending adjudication of the case.
Still, even with Justino's testing mishap -- and if it holds it up, it will be the second such violation of her career -- she looms large over the buildup to the fight, as both fighters acknowledged.
"Cris took herself out of the equation," Holm said. "Each division has to start somewhere. And when they first started 135-pound division it was a title fight with Ronda coming over. It built from there. And I know that right now this is part of the division. But there's so many girls that want the opportunity, I can guarantee you they can build this division in no time."
"If you're a champion you fight against everybody," de Randamie said. "Holly and I are going to fight and one of us will decide who's the next No. 1. And if one of us has to defend the title against Cris Cyborg, it will be Cris Cyborg who we defend the title against. I mean, we're going to fight and no matter what people think one of us will be the 145 champion."
Holm, a former three-weight-class world boxing champion, made her biggest mark in Nov. 2015, when she knocked out Rousey via head kick in Australia to win the bantamweight title in what at the time was considered a massive upset. But, she lost the title via submission to Tate in March, then was outpointed by Valentina Shevchenko in July.
De Randamie, for her part, has quietly built her resume without much of a promotion push from the company before this fight. Competing at bantamweight, she went 4-1 in the UFC, with her only loss to current champion Amanda Nunes. She takes a two-fight win streak, both via TKO, into the bout.
"I know I have two losses but I also know that I didn't get schooled in my last two fights," Holm said. "With Miesha Tate, I was winning until I got choked out. I got choked out -- completely unconscious. She won the fight. But I know that I was being competitive. And my fight with Shevchenko, she's up for the title bout right now and I know that it was still a close to fight. I still have confidence in my ability. I just need to perform it."
The evening's co-feature bout pits the longest reigning champion in UFC history, former middlweight champion Anderson Silva (33-8, 1 no-contest) of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. by way of Brazil, against Wilmington, N.C.'s Derek Brunson (16-4).
Silva, who turns 42 in April, has not officially won a fight since an Oct. 2012 finish of Stephan Bonnar. Brunson has won five of his past six fights.
UFC 208 Fight Card - Main Event
Date: February 11, 2017
Time: 10pm ET / 7pm PT
Venue: Barclays Center
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Where to Watch: Pay-Per-View
Holly Holm (10-2) vs. Germaine de Randamie (7-3)
Anderson Silva (33-8, 1NC) vs. Derek Brunson (16-4)
Ronald "Jacare" Souza (23-4, 1 NC) vs. Tim Boetsch (20-10)
Glover Teixeira (25-5) vs. Jared Cannonier (9-1)
Dustin Poirier (20-5) vs. Jim Miller (29-8, 1NC)
