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Strikeforce champion Cyborg Santos has been waiting on the sidelines for a year now to be resigned, and with the Zuffa purchasing the Bay Area company, the biggest question remains on if the champ will be resigned and if so, when.

Cyborg vs. Finney June 2010

Officially, Cyborg’s contract obligation ran out after the Jan Finney match in June of last year, and a lot of the reason why she was not resigned was because Strikeforce simply ran out of challengers. As the rest of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 came around, challengers have come out of the woodwork. Initially that was Julia Budd, then Amanda Nunes came on the scene. Germaine de Randamie, the kickboxing phenom, has signed with the promotion and has a great shot of matching Cyborg on her feet. So, lack of challengers is no longer an excuse.

When Zuffa came in, they didn’t resign all of the Strikeforce roster and roughly 4-6 of the fighters are under a Zuffa contract rather than their original Strikeforce contract. Zuffa is still on the fence about the women’s division, despite the fact that Strikeforce head Scott Coker stated the division will continue. The purse strings still lie with Zuffa, so it’s up to them to decide to resign Cyborg.

What is taking so long? A few theories have been floating around the internet. The first is that Zuffa isn’t interested in resigning Cyborg at all, because they don’t know what to do with her. Another is that she was asking for too much money. Personally, my theory is that Zuffa is still waiting for a proper challenger to get built up to face Cyborg, and it would be a waste of money to have her on the roster until then.

With Gina Carano’s delayed comeback, and the several matches scheduled to build both the 135 and 145 pound divisions, there are no slots available for the champ to defend her title. The best case scenario would be Sept. 10 with either the winner of Carano vs. D’Alelio (which is rumored for July 30) or the winner of the Julia Budd vs. Germaine de Randamie match on the June 24 card.

Until then, the women’s MMA fans will just have to wait.

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• Zuffa buys Strikeforce - what it means for Women's MMA

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