LOS ANGELES — If it was up to Max Holloway, Cris Cyborg and Angela Magana would have settled things in the ring.
In a now-infamous incident at last weekend’s UFC Athlete Retreat in Las Vegas, Cyborg punched Magana as retribution for what Cyborg viewed as cyber-bullying tweets by Magana making fun of her appearance.
In the aftermath, Cyborg has been cited for misdemeanor assault by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, and Magana has threatened to sue Cyborg.
Holloway, though, believes there could have been a simpler solution. Speaking at an event plugging his UFC 212 matchup with Jose Aldo, Holloway said the duo should have stepped into the ring at the company’s new training complex and settled matters.
“UFC has this nice new facility,” Holloway told reporters. “They should have just went inside. I would have told Cyborg — if I was Cyborg, I would have told her, we’ve got this new facility, they’ve got a ring in there, let’s put on 16-ounce gloves and try to take each other down, then shake hands and go our way. That’s what I would have done.”
Opinion over the incident has divided the MMA world. Holloway, for his part, doesn’t seem to have much sympathy for Magana, saying if you’re going to trash someone on Twitter, you better be ready for whatever consequences come your way.
“At the end of the day, if you’re going to talk sh*t on Twitter, and you’re going to see this person, you gotta think that something’s going to happen, you know?,” Holloway said. “And then when someone’s in your face, that close and whatever, it’s just like, you need to be fight-ready.”
As for the incident itself, Holloway believes that perhaps someone put Cyborg up to hitting Magana.
“You get a friend that’s with them ... hyping them up and telling them ‘don’t take it like that,’ who knows? Someone might have been in Cyborg’s ear. Cyborg’s not even like that, so she kind of feels like ‘I gotta go do something now,’ so she goes and do it.”
Knowing Magana was walking into a tense situation, and knowing what she had said about Cyborg, Holloway expressed surprise that Magana was caught off guard.
“It’s a fighter thing, you know?” he said. “[If] I [was] talking all this sh*t on Twitter, you know, you got punched in the face, you should have punched me back. Or, I’m going to punch you back, like ‘boom, boom.’ You move real fast, it’s a fight, it is what it is.”