In case you haven’t heard, Cris Cyborg does not want to fight Amanda Nunes, or at least that is the narrative that Dana White has been spinning, this time perhaps more adamantly than ever. Dana White insists that his claim of Cyborg not wanting to fight Amanda Nunes is not uttered out of any hostility but is merely a statement of fact:

“Yeah, she’s mad at me again for some reason,” White said in a recent media scrum. “Listen, I am not saying anything negative about Cyborg. She does not want to fight Amanda Nunes. That is a fact. Why should she be mad at me because she doesn’t want to fight Amanda Nunes is beyond me.

“But I have no problem with Cris. I said many times earlier when she first came in that there were obviously some things that we had to squash and fix, and I thought we had done that. And I’ve had a decent working relationship with her. Believe me, I’ve had much worse. I have no ill will toward her. And when I say she doesn’t want to fight Amanda, and I say that I don’t blame her, I’m not talking about her or being negative toward her. These are facts."

One theory floating around on what prevented a Cyborg/Nunes rematch is the contract negotiations between Cris Cyborg and the UFC, that perhaps Cyborg is not prepared to commit to a new deal with the promotion, and thus the promotion is unwilling to give essentially a free agent a shot at a world title. Dana White refuted this theory and continued to insist that the truth is much more linear: Cyborg simply does not want the fight.

“Then say that,” White responded to the theory of Cyborg wanting a new deal to fight Amanda Nunes. “Then say, ‘No, I don’t want to fight Amanda Nunes because I don’t want to sign a new contract.’”

The implication in that statement is that Cyborg has never said any such thing, but instead has only rejected the fight without explanation. White even went a step further in saying that he would be willing to have Cyborg sign a one-fight deal with the UFC to fight Amanda Nunes because if Cyborg were to win, there is already a title clause in UFC contracts that prevents fighters from being a free agent while a UFC champion:

“Yeah, of course,” White said of his desire to keep Cyborg in the UFC. “It’s not like we’re trying to chase her out of here. We’re trying to get something done. We’re trying to get another fight. Or, if she wanted to, she could do a one-fight deal and fight Amanda.”