After making history in her last fight, Hannah Rankin would like to take on former UFC champion Cris Cyborg.
Rankin became the first Scottish female world champion when she beat American Sarah Curran by a points victory in Paisley in June. Rankin has enjoyed some media exposure when BBC Scotland broadcast the fight live and she has made numerous radio and newspaper interviews and appearances. All helping to grow women’s boxing in Scotland.
Not content with this, Rankin has taken to social media to call out Cris Cyborg. With another boxing world champion and former opponent of Rankin’s, Claressa Shields, having already called out arguably the greatest women’s UFC fighter, bantamweight and featherweight world champion Amanda Nunes, Rankin would like to be in on some of the action.
“As I now have the same American management team as Claressa Shields,” Rankin explained to MMA UK. “I think her and Nunes is a great fight for TV! I think Claressa knocks her out but I think it will be a great fight for TV and as Claressa said, a better fight than Mayweather and McGregor, as I believe Nunes has some kind of boxing background back in Brazil which is why she’s run through the UFC Division.
“For myself, why would I not want to get involved in some of that action! I’m gaining a reputation for fighting anybody, anywhere anytime and Cyborg has said before she wanted to come to professional boxing and what better way than for me to fight another female combat athlete who’s a multi word champ in MMA and Thai boxing. How likely do I think it’s going to happen? In female combat sports anything can happen and just the other day she became a free agent from the UFC, so anything’s possible.”
Rankin believes the fight would be more likely to happen under boxing rules.
“As I’m the IBO 154lb World champion I’d fight her in the boxing ring but I’m not opposed to fighting her in the UFC Octagon.
“Outside of Amanda Nunes, she was the baddest women in MMA so why not?”
In a previous interview Rankin had told me she had started out in Thai boxing before moving to boxing but has she been working on her ground game?
“A little known fact about me, I used to take to the mat for fun in between boxing fights and I’ve done a reasonable amount of No- Gi.” Rankin said. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying I have the same grappling ability as Cris Cyborg, but I guess it’s that age old question in an MMA rules fight could she take me down before I landed strikes.”
Rankin would be interested in following in the footsteps of other boxing world champions such as Holly Holm, Amanda Serrano and Heather Hardy in trading the boxing ring for a cage. However with no lightweight division in the UFC we might have to wait a while to see Rankin in the Octagon.
“At the moment there is no women’s lightweight division at 155lbs and the heaviest they go in UFC is 145lbs but if Dana wanted to add a female lightweight division I’m down with that.”
Rankin will have fight News soon.
“I’ve got fight news pending, I’m just waiting on confirmation before I can announce!”
Photo credit – Hannah Rankin Facebook
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