Julia Budd looks to successfully defend her women's featherweight championship for the fourth time when she takes Cris "Cyborg" Justino in the main event of Bellator 238 on Saturday from The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., live on DAZN.
Cyborg will be making her promotional debut with the organization after leaving the UFC and signing a contract in September. For Budd, hearing that Cyborg was coming to the promotion where she reigns supreme was music to her ears.
"This is what I’ve been waiting for," Budd told DAZN News. "When I found Cyborg was coming over to sign with Bellator, I got extremely excited about it. I knew she was the No. 1 contender right away. This is it. I knew it would be a big fight. As soon as she signed, I was like, ‘Let’s get this fight booked’. I knew when I renewed my contract last March that she was thinking about coming over here (to Bellator). She had one more fight with the UFC. I think just her name in the 145-pound division says enough. I’ve always had my eye on her. She had the name before I got started."
The clash at Bellator 238 is the first time Budd and Cyborg will be squaring off, but it almost happened over a decade ago.
In 2008 Budd was competing in Muay Thai while Cyborg was early in her MMA run. But the Canadian received an intriguing phone call.
"They (Strikeforce) were looking for opponents for her," Budd said. "So in 2008, I got a phone call that they needed an opponent for Cris Cyborg. I wasn’t even considering MMA at the time. I was fighting in Muay Thai. I got a call to fight her then. She was already I think 6-1 or 5-1, something like that. I watched some stuff with my team, and I was like, ‘Oh, she’s good. Probably not a smart fight for my first-ever fight in the sport.’ That was my weight class and I knew at some point we would fight each other."
After losing her Muay Thai world title to former UFC women's featherweight titlist Germaine de Randamie in 2008, Budd was looking for a new obstacle to overcome. The 36-year-old just wasn't sure what avenue that would be in until she had a conversation with her husband that ultimately changed her life.
"I think it was the difficulty in finding kickboxing fights," Budd explained. "I was fighting Muay Thai for years. I lost my world title fight in 2008, and I decided that I just wanted a new challenge. I was a little burnt out and I wanted to try something new. So I started learning how to grapple in 2009 and 2010.
"Then my husband got hired by Rampage (Jackson) to do a camp in California. I went with him and started training. I basically got a call that they were looking for a 145-pound fighter for Strikeforce. I immediately said, ‘No way. I’m not ready for a fight to happen’. My husband said I was ready, even if it was just for one fight. He wanted me to get in there, do your thing, do your very best, and go from there. I ended up going in there and having a great showing and it propelled me into my career."
Not everything was on the up and up for Budd. She had just gotten smoked by Ronda Rousey in November 2011 in 39 seconds and at a crossroads in her mixed martial arts journey with a record of 2-2 when she faced Elina Nilsson in July 2012. Budd won via first-round TKO and hasn't lost since.
"I basically had to get back up and develop my game better," Budd told Sporting News in July 2018. "That loss actually propelled to me getting better with my wrestling, getting my ground game to where it should be, and using my strikes better in my standup. Overall, it was a tough loss to swallow, but I’m grateful for it because it forced me to become a better fighter."
Now, 12 years later and almost 48 hours away from stepping in the cage with one of the greatest female fighters of all time, Budd gets the chance she always knew in the back of her head would eventually happen.
"I’m going to enjoy every moment of it," Budd said. "I’m going to do my very best because a fight like this only comes around once in a lifetime."