Ronda Rousey: 'Cryborg' Santos needs attention to stay 'relevant,' doesn't have options like her

Perhaps the biggest women's mixed martial arts (MMA) fight that could possibly be made at the moment will probably never see the light of day anytime soon.

With Cristiane Santos' recent request to be released from her Strikeforce contract with Zuffa -- parent company of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) -- and her unwillingness (or anatomical inability) to drop down to 135 pounds, a much-desired fight between bantamweight queenpin Ronda Rousey and "Cyborg" will likely remain a mere fantasy.

For "Rowdy," it makes no difference because at the end of the day she has options, while "Cryborg" has very few. In fact, according to Rousey, the Brazilian only has one if she wants to remain "relevant."

She broke it down at today's (Feb. 12, 2013) UFC 157 media conference call:

"I think that she's just kind of making a lot of noise and trying to get attention because she's kind of leading to be irrelevant. She hasn't had a recorded win in about two years or something like that, so she needs to have people going on TV and making a big fuss in order for people to remember her name. I have a lot of options ahead of me. I have a lot of girls I can fight. She really doesn't have any options besides me. So they can go around and make a lot of noise and be ‘Cryborg' as much as you want, but at some point she's going to have to come around and take the only fight that's available to her. And in the meantime, I have plenty of options that are available to me."

It seemed Santos was open to the idea of attempting to cut the necessary weight to meet the bantamweight criteria; however, her manager, Tito Ortiz, recently revealed that trying to convince "Cyborg" to shed the extra muscle proved to be harder than he imagined.

With UFC currently not open to the idea of creating a female featherweight division -- a weight class Santos ruled while performing under the now-defunct Strikeforce umbrella -- Ortiz recently requested that his client be cut loose of her promotional obligations so that she may seek 145-pound fights elsewhere.

Meanwhile, plenty of other women have found their way into the UFC such as Miesha Tate and Cat Zingano, who will square off at The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 17 Finale on April 17, 2013.

For now, Rousey says her full attention is trained on her upcoming opponent, Liz Carmouche, who she will attempt to defend her title against for the first time ever at UFC 157 on Feb. 23, 2013, in Anaheim, California.

And now that Sara McMann and Alexis Davis have also joined the party, "Rowdy" has two more "options" than her rival, "Cryborg" "Cyborg."