UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion Amanda Nunes is undoubtedly one of the greatest to ever do it. She’s arguably the greatest female mixed martial artist of all time.
With plenty of accolades under her belt, some, including UFC analyst and light heavyweight Anthony Smith, are wondering if she ought to consider calling curtains on her illustrious career. Smith wondered about Nunes’ future on a recent episode of The MMA Hour.
Should Amanda Nunes Retire From The UFC?
“Is it weird that, at times, I look forward to Amanda Nunes’ retirement? It’s a very weird sentiment I have. Sometimes when I see her in these fight weeks, in these interviews, and she’s dragged her whole family there, and then she gets in and she fights, sometimes I almost feel bad for her.
Like, just go enjoy your life, and just go have fun. Like, stop doing all this s***. Because a lot of times she doesn’t seem to always enjoy it that much.”
Nunes, now aged 35, has enjoyed UFC championship since 2016. Although she lost her bantamweight title to Julianna Pena, she won the belt back in their immediate rematch. What’s left for Nunes to conquer?
“It was just, it’s wild to look back on, like, she was fighting back then. She’s been around so long, her and Nina. It was crazy.”
“I don’t know, I just feel like she’s in a position where she can just, there’s so much — she has a whole lifetime ahead of her.
And she’s done so much and, again, like, what else does she have to prove? At all? I just almost look forward to her to be able to just go off and just do something else great. I know that sounds weird, [but] I mean that in a really positive way. I mean that in a really positive way.
I just want her to be happy.” Nunes’ next fight headlines UFC 289 this weekend. Nunes will defend her bantamweight title against Irene Aldana, and Anthony Smith wonders if we might finally start to see the cracks in The Lioness’ armor.
“I’m not super confident in it, but I think if the best Amanda Nunes shows up, I think she gets the job done.The problem is her motivation has been in question at times. She’s got this a little bit of a different training setup, where she’s kind of off on her own doing her own thing.
We’ve seen that be really successful with some people, and really, really tragic in others. For example, myself, I wouldn’t be able t o kind of run my own camp and do it separately away from kind of a team atmosphere. It’s just not how my mentality is.
So I don’t know how that’s going to really work for her. But I think if the Amanda Nunes that fought Julianna Pena the second time shows up, I think that she can be really, really successful and dangerous.”
