Is 'Cyborg' Justino destined to be the Phantom of Brooklyn at UFC 208?

On Saturday night in Brooklyn, N.Y., the UFC will hold a women’s featherweight title fight without the help of the world’s greatest female featherweight. That’s one way of explaining what the UFC 208 main event bout between Holly Holm and Germaine de Randamie is all about.

Another way of putting it is, the UFC is putting on its very first women’s featherweight fight, and it’s doing it without the person who is the sole reason for its reluctant embrace of the division in the first place.

What are we supposed to make of that as we sit down to watch Saturday night’s headliner? Just as relevant a question, what is the UFC going to make of it on the pay-per-view broadcast?

Seems to me there’s two ways the company can go: 1) Act like Cristiane Justino doesn’t exist, or, if she does exist, she’s no more important than any other potential special guest who, for reasons we won’t bore you with, couldn’t be with us tonight. 2) Confront the “Cyborg” situation head on, acknowledging her as the greatest fighter in this new division, and explaining why it’s mostly her doing that she’d not a part of this historic title fight.

Of course, there are some shades of gray available here. If you recall, the way this all started was the UFC wanted to have its first women’s featherweight title fight, and it already had a firm date in mind.

According to Justino (17-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC), she couldn’t make the date, not physically or psychologically, so she passed. Instead of working with her to find a date she could make, the UFC decided to plow ahead without her, which seemed like either a slavish devotion to the schedule or a spiteful way of reminding her that fighters are replaceable parts in the UFC machinery.

To twist the narrative even further, shortly after the UFC announced its intention to go ahead without “Cyborg,” it also announced her “potential anti-doping policy violation.” Justino’s camp has since dismissed it as a medical issue, but that doesn’t answer all our questions when you’re already a terrifyingly powerful juggernaut with one positive steroid test on your record.

Enter Holm (10-2 MMA, 3-2 UFC) and de Randamie (6-3 MMA, 3-1 UFC), two curious choices for this fight who remind us how shallow the pool is at 145 pounds.

Holm is a former UFC women’s bantamweight champion who’s now riding a two-fight losing skid. And while de Randamie has fought at featherweight in the past and has back-to-back wins at bantamweight coming into this fight, I doubt any of us saw her win over Anna Elmose last May and thought, yep, that ought to punch her ticket to a title fight in a division the UFC does not yet have.

Point is, it’s weird. These two fighters were chosen not quite at random, but also not as the result of an exhaustive search for the world’s best female featherweights. They are both a species of stand-in. Their fight feels like a contest to see who gets to hand the belt over to “Cyborg” at a ceremony to be scheduled later.

Seems to me that there has to be a way to acknowledge this fact without completely sucking the air out of what is still a technically historic title fight. Also seems like the alternative – not mentioning Justino’s place in this story at all – asks us for such an extreme suspension of disbelief that it’s bound to backfire.

Anyone who knows enough about the goings on in MMA to think UFC 208 is worth paying for probably also knows enough to appreciate the fact that this is as much about who’s not there as who is.

The shadow of “Cyborg” is bound to loom over this headliner, possibly lurking in the rafters like an uncommonly jacked version of the Phantom of the Opera. Pretending she’s not there only heightens the sense of distraction rather than diminishing it. Because it’s not like anyone who’s been paying attention won’t already know.

For more on UFC 208, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.