UFC women’s featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie has continued to leave MMA fans confused in regards to her next fight. While all signs pointed to de Randamie making her first title defense against Cris Cyborg, conflicting rumors have continued to surface regarding when, or if, de Randamie will ever make her first title defense.

This week, the champ’s manager revealed that the champ simply does not want to fight Cris Cyborg given her past failed drug tests. The champ’s manager revealed that de Randamie would even go as far as to consider allowing the UFC to strip her of her title rather than fight Cyborg.

The challenger promptly released a statement to MMAFighting firing back at GDR’s manager:

“I was the first athlete to do over a year of testing with USADA BEFORE officially fighting in the UFC.

USADA granted me a Therapeutic usage after a 60 day investigation with compliance from myself and both their doctors and my own.

Who is GDR? She struggled to make 200k PPV buys with Holly Holm and Anderson Silvia fighting!! Megan Anderson is twice as popular as her and doesn’t have losses against Julia Budd and Amanda Nunes.

GDR is an example of why rankings need to be independently established and respected. She won the belt fighting someone who has now lost 3 in a row and was ranked #10 at 135lbs. I don’t see how someone ranked #10 at 135lbs is getting a title shot. Someone with back to back losses should never be fighting for the belt either. I’m world champion. GDR is UFC champion.

I am the true world champion at 145 with Julia Budd and Megan Anderson the next Contenders.

I can respect GDR saying she doesn’t want to fight me, but she knows I’m clean with the USADA guarantee and she is just searching for air. I think maybe she’s disappointed with the money her manager is getting her and trying to use this for negotiation.”

This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 5/27/2017.