What follows is the third piece of a multi part story on Amanda Nunes. I cut each main paragraph into segments and am releasing it one day at a time, like I’m Charles Dickens.
Nunes fights because that is what she does and who she is and last year she fought like few women ever have. Her UFC 213 opponent, Valentina Shevchenko was the first to fall, last March. A unanimous decision earned Nunes the victory on the undercard of McGregor vs Diaz 1.
That win secured Nunes a shot against champion, Miesha Tate. Tate, whether nicknamed Cupcake or Takedown, had nothing to offer the Brazilian. She didn’t last four minutes. Nunes bulled her over, landing Liddell-like anvils of her own, dragging the fight to the mat, and choking Tate until the champion relinquished the strap.
Not since the prime of Ronda Rousey had women’s MMA seen a title fight end so swiftly. But it was Rousey that served as Nunes’s greatest accomplishment. The legendary champion, the woman who defined women’s MMA, the freak who’d only lost once and was now returning from a sabbatical, was nothing to Nunes.
48 seconds was as long as Rousey could stand. Nunes thumped the Judoka with punches. She would have done so at will, but in a fight so short, there was no time to think. As Rousey crumbled to the Octagon floor, bloody and humiliated, as a stunned crowd tried to understand what had just happened, Nunes screamed a primal scream of joy.
One year, three fights, three victories, and no doubt left to the world as to who was Amanda Nunes.
UFC 213 EMBEDDED EPISODE 3
- 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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