Amanda Nunes has fought and defeated a laundry list of former champions and all time greats during her career and she looks to add one more with her fight booked against Kayla Harrison at UFC 334.
That said as Nunes returns from retirement, she definitely understands the dangers that Harrison represents in the octagon but that doesn’t mean she considers her upcoming opponent as the biggest threat she’s ever faced. In fact, Nunes looks back at a fight she ended in less than one minute as the toughest
challenge she’s ever faced.
“[Cris] Cyborg was [the toughest],” Nunes said during UFC 334 media day. “Respect. Size wise too. Cyborg’s huge. Cyborg is like double Kayla. Cyborg can knock me out. The power that woman has and never lost before, all those things.
“This fight is different but my biggest ones in history was becoming double champ against Cyborg, for sure.”
Nunes pulled off the victory after moving up to featherweight to challenge Cris Cyborg for her UFC title and the fight lasted just 51 seconds.
That win crowned Nunes as a two-division champion and she eventually went onto defend both titles before her retirement.
As far as the fight with Harrison is fully confident she’s going to win and reclaim the bantamweight title she left behind when she called it a career and then defend that multiple times.
“I will win on Saturday,” Nunes said. “There’s no doubt in my mind. You guys know that. I’m going to do it. My belts both, I have space already on my wall for them. Anybody after that. Whatever the UFC wants to do.”
As far as her past with Harrison goes, Nunes shut down any notion that she’s harboring ill will towards the two-time Olympian ahead of their fight.
So much was made about Nunes and Harrison training together in the past and sharing some of the same coaches but the Brazilian promises there’s no underlying disdain between them. This upcoming challenge is all about competition and Nunes isn’t secretly seething for revenge against her former teammate.
“No hate here,” Nunes said. “It’s about hating nobody. It’s about the challenge that Kayla brings and how great this is going to be for women’s MMA. The only thing we never would have done that training on the same mat with the same coaches and the same gym. That’s what the problem was and the situation. But I don’t hate Kayla. Why would I hate Kayla?
“Why is everything about hate? This is a fight. We want to prove who is the best girl in the cage that night. So it’s not hate at all.”
