On Saturday night, on the undercard of UFC 232, former UFC bantamweight title challenger Cat Zingano will move up to the featherweight division to battle former Invicta champ Megan Anderson. If she wins, she’s hoping to get a shot at the winner of Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes’s UFC 232 co-main event title fight.
In fact, she’s already offered to step in should Nunes or Cyborg fail to make it to the cage.
“I’m a fighter, I’m a warrior. I’m always going to want to fight and I want to fight the people that are the best,” Zingano told MMAWeekly. “I volunteered to be the alternate for Amanda and Cris. I think I was the only one raising my hand for that one. They said sure go ahead and get ready but instead of having me get ready for nothing, they gave me an opponent for the same night as well.
“So now it all makes sense to have everybody ready.”
While Cat Zingano has spent her recent career in the bantamweight division, she doesn’t anticipate any issues fighting in the heavier featherweight division. In fact, she says it’s been nice not having to worry as much about her weight cut.
“I’m a very big bantamweight. I always have been,” Zingano said. “I used to be No. 1 at 125 pounds but I was too big for that weight class so I went up to bantamweight and my goal was to be No. 1 at 135 and I’ve touched that but I haven’t accomplished what I wanted but I do plan to so right now it’s fight everyone, fight everything and see what I can do. It’s a battle and it’s fun and it’s scary and it’s challenging, it’s all of the things that make me tick.
“I’m pumped to be doing something different. I can’t express how awesome it is to do camp when you’re nourished and you can eat. It’s a completely different feeling when you go into these fights healthy. I get to stop my cut at 145, which is still a significant cut for me, but it’s better than 135. So I’m grateful for that.”
While Zingano’s current focus is on gold in the featherweight division, she says she does hope to return to the bantamweight division in the future.
“I do want to stay fluid and be able to bounce between 135 and 145 but I will say this is a pretty awesome f—king treat,” she said.
As a matter of fact, Cat Zingano also dreams of earning the title in the new UFC women’s flyweight division.
“The vision I had was be the champion at 125 and then be the champion at 135 and then be the champion at 145,” she said. “That’s always going to be my goal. When I look up at the stars at night, that makes me excited to do. If it doesn’t happen in that order, it doesn’t happen in that order. This is what has manifested now.
“Should that be the order it goes in, hell yeah I’m ready to take it. I’m here to fight the best and be the best and to challenge myself and figure out this hierarchy.”
Do you think Cat Zingano can topple Megan Anderson at UFC 232?