Amanda Nunes News

Drake Riggs - July 11, 2018

From the biggest super fight between men in MMA to the biggest super fight between women? It certainly appears to be a possibility. In the early stages of UFC 226’s coming together, it was looking like there was a possibility for the card to be the “super fight card” by playing host to three epic champion encounters.

Tom Taylor - June 10, 2018

Former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm was the picture of dominance in her UFC 225 main card featherweight battle with Megan Anderson, showing off a rarely seen but extremely impressive ground game en route to a lopsided unanimous decision win. With this victory, Holm effectively established herself as the number-one contender at both featherweight and bantamweight. She’s one of the only options available for featherweight champ Cris Cyborg, and one of the few top bantamweights left that bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes has not yet fought. It really seems to come down to which division she’d prefer to fight for the title in first.

Drake Riggs - May 28, 2018

Everyone has their eyes on a big super fight these days it seems. And UFC women’s featherweight champion, Cris Cyborg is no different. Cyborg is unbeaten in the UFC(5-0) and has racked up two title defenses since officially becoming the champion in July 2017 when she defeated Invicta FC bantamweight champion, Tonya Evinger.

Chris Taylor - May 13, 2018

Last night’s UFC 224 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was headlined by a women’s bantamweight title fight featuring current champion Amanda Nunes taking on surging division contender Raquel Pennington. “The Lioness” was able to utilize some heavy low kicks throughout the course of the fight to soften up “Rocky”.

Chris Taylor - May 12, 2018

A women’s bantamweight title fight headlined tonight’s UFC 224 event as Amanda Nunes put her title on the line against Raquel Pennington. Round one begins and Nunes starts off quickly by taking the center of the octagon. She leaps in with a left that fails to hit the mark. Nunes with a huge low kick that sends Pennington flying and crashing to the floor. She gets back up but Nunes is there to greet her with punches and then a pair of low kicks. Pennington fakes a kick to the body. Nunes lands a jab followed by another leg kick that sends Rocky to the floor. Pennington gets back up but Nunes greets her with a jab to the body. Amanda continues to fire off low kicks. Pennington ducks under a punch but misses with a counter left hook attempt. Both women decide to stand and trade in the pocket. Nunes side steps and then fires off a right hand. Another good combination from Nunes. Pennington eats it and then fires back with a nice uppercut. Nunes continues to press the pace here in round one. She lands another heavy low kick. Pennington comes forward with a combination. Nunes avoids and then lands a low kick. She lands another. Pennington charges forward with a flurry. Round one comes to an end.

Drake Riggs - March 21, 2018

UFC​ women’s bantamweight champion @Amanda_Leoa discusses her and @NinaAnsaroff’s future plans for their careers and family 👶🍼 pic.twitter.com/WlMqe6gVgr — MMA Fighting (@MMAFighting) March 21, 2018

Tom Taylor - March 21, 2018

UFC women’s bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes and top flyweight contender Valentina Shevchenko have previously engaged in two competitive scraps, with Nunes’ emerging the victor by a narrow margin on both occasions. While the grounds for a third fight would certainly seem to be there as a result, this is not something Nunes is interested in. “I don’t care about [Shevchenko],” Nunes told MMAJunkie this week. “She’s, like, only Valentina. She’s going to talk about me. I’m the best, you know? That’s why she talks about me.”

Drake Riggs - March 20, 2018

Tecia Torres: “Well here in Brazil…we’re friends so we’re gonna be friends but when it comes down to the fight in May, business is business. Amanda [Nunes] is the champion for a reason. She deserves to be there but in this sport we all want that same spot so we have to fight for it and Raquel [Pennington] is going in there to fight for it. At the end of the day, business is business. Outside that, we’re friends and there’s no reason to be rivals.”

Tom Taylor - March 14, 2018

Over the years, we’ve heard several Brazilian fighters express disinterest in fighting their fellow Brazilians. This is not to suggest Brazilian vs. Brazilian matchups don’t happen – they certainly do – but there seem to be a few fighters from the country who frown on fighting their countrymen. UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes doesn’t seem to be one of these fighters. Though Nunes is currently signed to take on Raquel Pennington at UFC 224 this May, there has recently been much discussion surrounding a potential fight between her and women’s featherweight champ Cris Cyborg – a fellow Brazilian.

Justin Golightly - March 8, 2018

While this fight has been penciled in for awhile now, the UFC has been wishy-washy about etching it in stone. As of today though, the UFC officially confirmed that Amanda Nunes will put her women’s bantamweight title on the line against Raquel Pennington. Nunes is currently rising a six-fight win streak against absurd competition, beating Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey, and Valentina Shevchenko twice. While she’s been out for two years, Pennington is still rising a four-win run of her own. Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington finally official for UFC 224 in Brazil. Long time coming, UFC originally targeted this as far back as December. Latest date first reported by @DamonMartin. Interesting title fight.

Justin Golightly - February 10, 2018

With all the switch-ups and fight announcements, it’s hard to keep up. The UFC is scrambling to add to cards and take from others in order to fill in for all of the changes resulting from the chaos. Amanda Nunes and Cris Cyborg seemed all but official as a superfight, that was until the UFC needed a main event title fight for UFC 222 after Max Holloway had to pull out. Due to the booking of Cyborg and Yana Kunitskaya, Combate is now reporting that Amanda Nunes will fight Raquel Pennington in defense of her UFC women’s bantamweight title at UFC 224 in Brazil. Jesus, I just want announced my fight. 😫

Drake Riggs - February 7, 2018

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of the possible bantamweight title fight matchup between Raquel Pennington and the champion, Amanda Nunes. In fact, the fight was apparently on it’s way to getting finalized for UFC 219 at the end of 2017 but before the bout agreements could be signed, Pennington got into a nasty car crash that obviously put her first career title shot on hold. Pennington has since stated that a May return would be most likely for her. Damon Martin reports that the discussions have fired back up to get this 135-pound title fight back in place.

Justin Golightly - January 30, 2018

Aside from Daniel Cormier and Stipe Miocic’s ultra mega fight being booked, there is at least a couple more superfights lingering around that haven’t been finalized. One of them is UFC featherweight champion Cris Cyborg defending against UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. Dana White said he’d put it together, Nunes campaigned for it, Cyborg has said she’s agreed to it but nothing has happened yet. This has led to Nunes to publicly wonder what the hold up is with the match-up. “I wanted that fight [with Cyborg]. She didn’t even think about that when I decided to do it. I texted Dana White, and I said I wanted that fight. I’m ready to go up. I wanted something big for my career and I decided the next step would be Cyborg. But the negotiations have been so slow. I don’t know what is wrong, but I didn’t even see my contract yet. Nothing is official. [I didn’t want a] catchweight at all. I’m going up to 145. I don’t want to make this so long – already it’s long. […] I’ve fought there before. My first fight in Strikeforce at 145 was against Julia Budd. Things worked very well for me. I’m a little bit over losing weight as well. I have to get on the diet and go down. I want to take a little break from that and go up. I think this is the best choice for me right now and they don’t have nobody in my division.”

Justin Golightly - January 24, 2018

It looks like the first superfight of 2018 has finally gotten close to becoming official. Dana White said it was the fight to make. Amanda Nunes has wanted it for some time in her quest to become a two-weight champion. Cris Cyborg has said she agreed with her management for it to happen. So, it seems like UFC featherweight champion will attempt to defend her belt against UFC bantamweight title holder Amanda Nunes. Reluctant to accept at first, Cyborg recently has gone on record saying she thinks Nunes needs this fight for money and to increase her fame. “Amanda [Nunes] fought Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate with big pay-per-view numbers. The reality though is that the UFC promoted her opponents more than her, and after having to fight on her own brand she struggled to sell 100,000 pay-per-views against [Valentina] Shevchenko. Amanda knows my name sells pay-per-views and without it her brand isn’t strong enough to sell enough pay-per-views to reach her bonus incentives in her contract.”

Drake Riggs - January 22, 2018

It appears that the UFC Featherweight champion, Cris Cyborg has changed her mind! Originally, she was stating that for her next fight she would like to defend against a fighter that has been competing and winning at Featherweight lately. She has now said that she is ready for the UFC Bantamweight champion, Amanda Nunes next rather than waiting until after the title defense against a Featherweight that she was asking for. I have agreed with my management to fight @Amanda_Leoa #ufc226 July 7th in Las Vegas during international fight week. I will let her finalize her side of the bout now. pic.twitter.com/w5YIYYRGV5

Tom Taylor - January 18, 2018

Over the last few weeks, there has been ample discussion surrounding a potential superfight between UFC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg and UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. UFC President Dana White has assured this is the fight he wants next for both women.

Tom Taylor - January 10, 2018

Ever since UFC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg thwarted challenger Holly Holm at UFC 219, UFC women’s bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes has been eager to fight her. UFC President Dana White also seems to be on board with this plan. And while there are still some major hurdles to clear before this fight is made, Nunes’ head coach at American Top Team, Conan Silveira, is very confident it’ll happen. “People want to see it,” Silveira told MMAjunkie. “I think they have the best opportunity to leave their marks on history.”

Drake Riggs - January 8, 2018

Nothing is set in stone regarding the UFC’s current Featherweight division. Matter of fact, there has yet to be a UFC Featherweight fight between two fighters that haven’t fought below 140 lbs. There have been three Featherweight fights so far in the UFC. Starting things off with UFC 208, where the inaugural champion was crowned when Germaine De Randamie defeated Holly Holm via unanimous decision. Both fighters were previously Bantamweight contenders before that fight. The second fight was for the vacant title after De Randamie gave up the title making it Cris Cyborg vs Tonya Evinger. Evinger was coming over as the Invicta FC Bantamweight champion, filling in for Invicta’s Featherweight champion, Megan Anderson. And most recently, Cyborg defended her title against Holly Holm at UFC 219. In an effort to break this trend, the champion, Cyborg wants to fight a fighter with a recent win at 145 lbs for her next title defense. Then she will be open to a super fight with the Bantamweight champion, Amanda Nunes who is clamoring for the fight as are the fans. Cyborg had this to say on Twitter in response to Nunes’ coach at American Top Team, Conan Silveira when he said he thinks Nunes vs Cyborg will “1000% happen”.