Cyborg loses sponsor following Magana incident
“Unfortunately, within a matter of hours of appearing and speaking at our event, Cris was involved in “battery” of another fighter on the street outside a UFC retreat.”
Last month UFC strawweight Angela Magana made a mean Tweet about the greatest fighter in women’s mixed martial arts history, Cris Cyborg. Magana had set a pic of the Brazilian entertaining children in a cancer ward side by side with an image of Billy the Puppet from the Saw franchise. Particularly given that Cyborg’s father is currently fighting cancer, the insult did not go over well.
Cyborg confronted Magana at last month’s UFC Athlete Retreat, and after exchanging words, punched her in the face. The police were contacted, and Cyborg was cited by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for misdemeanor battery. The district attorney has yet to decide whether or not to pursue charges, but Magana has said she will be filing a civil suit.
Most fighters fell into the “Talk s*** get hit” camp. However, one of Cyborg’s sponsors, women’s athletic apparel brand GRRRL, has withdrawn from their deal with the fighter, citing the incident with Magana. As an aside, the spelling in the release below follows British convention.
In response to criticism of GRRRL in respect of our recent dealings with Cris Cyborg, we consider it is necessary to present the background to what SHOULD have remained a private matter in respect of our commercial sponsorship of Cris.
A little over a month ago we entered into a 12 month sponsorship agreement with Cris, to cover a personal appearance at our GRRRL:Live event in Las Vegas combined with an ongoing 12 month commitment through Cris’s social media channels.
Unfortunately, within a matter of hours of appearing and speaking at our event, Cris was involved in battery of another fighter on the street outside a UFC retreat. Cris’s conduct in this regard has broadly been condemned by the fight industry and the organization by whom she is contracted as a fighter.
As a company with representation and brand ambassadors amongst girls as young as 6, we cannot publically condone this behaviour especially as the behaviour is directly in conflict with the messages Cris shared at the event, one of our speakers on cyber bullying and our company message to promote female harmony and unity.
This conduct has the potential to diminish the tireless work by our amazing network of women throughout the world to support female harmony and unity.
As a consequence of these matters, it is with regret that our sponsorship of Cris has come to an end.
We wish Cris well with her continued professional career. And every success in the future.
We are unable to comment any further in respect of this matter as it is now being handled by our legal team.
Cyborg was not impressed.
https://twitter.com/criscyborg/status/873003953163608064https://twitter.com/criscyborg/status/873034956439564291https://twitter.com/criscyborg/status/873041410252980225https://twitter.com/criscyborg/status/873006839398408192
Curiously, a day after withdrawing Cyborg’s sponsorship, she still appears on their website as a sponsored athlete.