White: Cyborg vs. Nunes 'the fight to make'

The UFC's two most dominant women appear to be on a collision course.

UFC president Dana White said a bout between Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes "is the fight to make" after the featherweight champion retained her belt with a first-round destruction of Yana Kunitskaya at Saturday's UFC 222 in Las Vegas.

"(Cyborg)'s a beast," White said, per Alexander K. Lee of MMAFighting.com. "The fight to make is her and Nunes. That's the fight that needs to happen. Nunes wants the fight, she wants the fight, I want the fight, I'm sure the fans want to see it, too, so we’ll get that one going."

Nunes is reportedly set to defend her bantamweight title against Raquel Pennington at UFC 224 on May 12 in Rio de Janeiro, but it's not been made official and talks only sparked after negotiations with Cyborg's camp broke down.

It's possible the UFC opts to scrap the bout in favor of a highly marketable champ vs. champ slugfest, but while Cyborg agrees with White that the fight has to happen, she is prepared to wait until July to face Nunes.

"She's going to fight now, defend her title belt in Brazil in May, I think, and then probably I'm going to fight in July if she wins and is the champion," Cyborg said. "And now she's calling me out, I'm not calling Amanda out. She's calling me out. And yeah, I could fight her in July."