UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes sees herself as a two-division champion.
However, whichever weight class she chooses to go after is entirely dependent on various circumstances. First off, she needs to get past the number one title contender in the women’s bantamweight division, which is Raquel Pennington at the upcoming UFC 224 pay-per-view event.
She told MMAJunkie in a recent interview that she would be willing to move to flyweight.
This isn’t the first time that she has talked about a weight class change. In the past, she has noted that she has attempted to cut down to 125 before, but it was not easy.
If she wanted to do it for a fight, then it would require her entire team working in sync to assure it was done in a safe and efficient manner.
One thing is for certain, she doesn’t want to fight Valentina Shevchenko for the third time.
“I don’t care about her,” Nunes told MMAjunkie. “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.
“I beat her twice. She had her chance to try and beat me, clear. She did a couple of things in the (second) fight, but I don’t think she deserves the belt. She wasn’t able to hold me back that much in the cage. It was the same in the first fight.”
“Right now, I’m really focused on this fight (with Pennington); it’s very hard to talk about the next step,” Nunes said. “I have to go through this one first. But when you get in my position, I’m the best in my division. I think from here, you only want to prove yourself more and more. Going down to 125 and trying the 125 belt, or going up, this is the thing that sometimes you have to do to keep yourself in the top.”
Nunes comes into this fight on a six fight winning streak. She won the title from Ronda Rousey, which marked the final bout of her storied pro-MMA career, back in December of 2016 at UFC 207.
“Imagine if I beat the girls in the other divisions. That’s going to be huge for me. It’s going to be a lot of dreams come true. But right now, I’m focusing on this fight. This fight is a big fight in my career right now, and to keep this belt is more important to me.”
The UFC 224 pay-per-view event is slated to go down on Saturday, May 12 in Rio de Janeiro. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
What are your thoughts on Nunes potentially going down to flyweight? Sound off in the comment section below.
