UFC president Dana White has chimed in on a potential bout between Amanda Nunes and Claressa Shields.
Shields, who is a unified boxing champion, has teased the idea of making a transition to mixed martial arts. She has been asked on several occasions if a bout with UFC “champ-champ” Amanda Nunes interests her. Last month, Shields appeared on SiriusXM’s MMA Tonight show and admitted that she isn’t ready for Nunes inside the Octagon. She does, however, believe she’d wallop Nunes inside the boxing ring (via MMAFighting.com).
“I give her full props,” Shields said. “In MMA right now, she would beat me at this point. We’re talking about if we fight tomorrow, at this point she would beat me. And at this point if me and her were to fight tomorrow, I would knock her out in a boxing match. That’s just pretty clear but if Dana White wants to have her come over to boxing and try her luck with me, I’m more than willing to meet her at 154 [pounds] and we can fight.”
Not long after that interview took place, Shields made a post on her Twitter account saying that being an MMA prize fighter is so ambitious that she may be tempted to test the waters.
“This quote is really making me consider trying the [UFC]! I had this weird feeling about turning pro a few years ago and I stumbled up on this quote & decided to do it! And then yesterday this same quote reappeared! With all this talk about me and Nunes I had that same feeling.”
UFC president Dana White addressed the possibility of Nunes vs. Shields during a media scrum inside the UFC Apex (via Damon Martin of MMAFighting.com).
“I’m not [interested] but I would never say no,” White responded. “If Amanda Nunes continues on her reign and continues, anything is possible. Anything’s possible that we could do with her.”
