By Pete Hoffman
It seems like the best-of-all-time debate resurfaces after every championship fight in MMA: How does one champion compare to another? Whose title run was better? The debate picked up again at the conclusion of UFC 232 this weekend at the Forum in Inglewood, California. It wasn’t focused on Jon Jones’ victory over Alexander Gustafsson in the main event, though.
It was about Amanda Nunes, who scored an otherworldly knockout victory over Cris Cyborg to win the featherweight belt and become UFC’s first woman two-division champion.
Nunes, 30, holds a 17-4 professional record since her debut in 2008. Nunes trains (along with her fiancée, Nina Ansaroff) at American Top Team, one of the most well-respected MMA gyms in the country. UFC has not promoted Nunes like a star, but that will be changing shortly.
The native of Brazil is on an eight-fight winning streak. Her recent run has been impressive for whom she has beaten and how she has finished them.
Nunes might be most famous for her 48-second TKO of Ronda Rousey that essentially retired the superstar from the sport in December 2016.
Cyborg had won 20 fights in a row (her only loss was in her first professional MMA fight) and was considered unstoppable. Nunes, moving up in weight, defeated her in under a minute.
Add it up: Nunes beat Rousey and Cyborg, the best women ever in their respective weight classes, in a combined 99 seconds of fight time.
Since March 2016, Nunes also has beaten current flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko twice, recorded a first-round TKO of Miesha Tate to claim the bantamweight title, and notched a fifth-round TKO of Raquel Pennington.
But it’s not just about Nunes’ knockout power, her quick and powerful hands. Nunes is well-round: Her ground game is not complete, but when in top control she has a devastating ground-and-pound that sets up her Brazilian Jiu-jitsu submissions (a la her win over Tate).
It’s easy to forget as she destroys legends such as Rousey, Cyborg, and Tate, but Nunes had losses early in her career. This is MMA: Everyone loses at some point. (Anderson Silva, arguably the best MMA fighter ever, had four losses before his legendary 17-fight winning streak and has four more losses in the end-stage of his career.) What’s important to note is how fighters recover and recalibrate after a loss.
In her first pro fight, Nunes was caught in an amateurish armbar due to her over-aggressive approach and novice ground game. She turned a disappointing debut into a six-fight win streak — all the wins by knockout, four of the six in 68 seconds or fewer.
Nunes split her next six fights. The three wins were in dominant fashion, strong starts leading to first-round stoppages. The three losses showed a flaw in her game. Each came late in the fight, which raised concerns about her conditioning and stamina. Nunes' second loss came late in the second round (to Alexis Davis); the other two made it to the third round, and one went the entire 15 minutes.
Since her last loss — to Cat Zingano in September 2014 — Nunes has allowed just three of her eight victories to reach the second round. In May, Nunes punished Pennington, the No. 2-ranked bantamweight and a friend, for four-plus rounds before the ref stopped it. The biggest challenges have come from Shevchenko, who twice took Nunes the distance. Shevchenko has found a flaw or two, but was unable to crack the code.
Nunes is in her prime and has beaten the best of the best. She has improved her conditioning and moved up in weight without losing her knockout power. She has solved a variety of top opponents. She is undoubtedly the best woman in the world at the moment, and has staked a fair claim to be labeled the G.O.A.T., the greatest woman fighter of all time. For now.
So who’s next for Nunes?
Cris Cyborg: The 33-year-old fellow Brazilian lost for the first time since 2005. If the former featherweight champ doesn’t deserve a rematch, who does? Cyborg was clearly the slower of the two fighters, but fans will be clamoring for a sequel.
Holly Holm: Nunes has never faced Holm, the former bantamweight champ who is the only other woman to beat Rousey. Holm, known for her kickboxing, can cause problems by creating distance with her kicks.
Ronda Rousey: It’s highly doubtful Rousey would leave WWE to fight in UFC again, but it doesn’t hurt to dream. If Rousey entered with a different approach and avoided standing toe to toe with Nunes, she might actually have success with her Olympic-class judo skills. Could Rousey get Nunes to the ground? We may never find out.
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