What follows is the first installment of a multi-part story on Amanda Nunes. I cut each main section into pieces and am releasing it one day at a time, like I’m Charles Dickens trying to add interesting copy to Embedded episodes.
There isn’t an Aggrieved Person box Amanda Nunes doesn’t get to check: gay, woman, not-white, not-American, cage-fighter, poor, doesn’t speak English (well), immigrant. But there’s only one box she and she alone gets to check: UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion.
Those Identifiers focused on make for good copy, they allow a fan to connect to her in some way, but they’re also limiting. No one was told to care about Chuck Liddell’s skin color, accent, sexuality, nationality, or economic background.
Chuck was a badass who threw anvils for punches and that was enough. He looked kinda awkward with skinny arms and a distended but not fat stomach, a mohawk from Generic 1980s Street Gang central casting, and a goofy tattoo on the side of his head; barely coherent at times, whether due to shyness or brain damage, he mumbled when he spoke. No one pointed to him as an example for those not adept at speaking in public. He was allowed to be who he was: a killer inside a locked cage.
Why can we not let Nunes be the same? Why must those things she doesn’t control trump those she does?
Watch UFC 213 Embedded Episode One
- Women’s Bantamweight Championship Amanda Nunes (c) vs. Valentina Shevchenko
- BS INTERIM Middleweight Title Yoel Romero vs. Robert Whittaker
- Heavyweight Daniel Omielańczuk vs. Curtis Blaydes
Welterweight Robbie Lawler vs. Donald Cerrone- Heavyweight Fabricio Werdum vs. Alistair Overeem
- Lightweight Anthony Pettis vs. Jim Miller
- Heavyweight Travis Browne vs. Oleksiy Oliynyk
- Welterweight Jordan Mein vs. Belal Muhammad
- Welterweight Chad Laprise vs. Brian Camozzi
- Middleweight Thiago Santos vs. Gerald Meerschaert
- Bantamweight Douglas Silva de Andrade vs. Rob Font
- Featherweight Cody Stamann vs. Terrion Ware
- Light Heavyweight Trevin Giles vs. James Bochnovic
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