Amanda Nunes may be nearing retirement, but will not take off the gloves after her next fight.
When MMA fans talk about the “Greatest Of All Time” many names are usually brought up in the conversation. Amongst those names is UFC bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes. Nunes came to the UFC back in August 2013 and immediately began to show people that she meant business. Several wins in a row led her to her very first title fight in 2016 since then it has basically been domination.
Juliana Peña thinks it’s time for Amanda Nunes to retire
At 34 years old Nunes has done almost everything an MMA fighter could do in the sport. She won two division titles and defended them both successfully. She defeated some of the best in the sport including Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, and Holly Holm. In addition to being one of the best fighters inside the cage, she also has an accomplished personal life outside the cage. She and her wife, former UFC fighter Nina Nunes have started a family which many believed could be the beginning of the end of Nunes’ fight career. Her next opponent Peña believes this as well. She spoke about this in a recent interview with ESPN.
“I see that she brings up the word retirement because like Dana always says, if you’re talking about retiring, then you should probably think about retiring. At the end of the day, everybody is camp Nunes and that’s fine. I have nothing but love and respect for you, Amanda we’ve shared almost 40 minutes inside the Octagon,” Peña said. “But at the end of the day at some point, it’s got to end and you may want to think about laying those gloves down inside the Octagon after this fight on June 10.”
Despite Peña’s claims that it’s time for Nunes to hang up her gloves, she has no intentions of doing so after her next fight. The task at hand is to defeat Peña and she’s flat-out stated that no retirement will come that night at UFC 289 in June.
“In this sport, I did everything that I want,” Nunes said. “I accomplished everything, baby. This fight, it’s not gonna be my retirement.”
If Nunes can get past Peña for the second time in a row she will have a decision to make. She is still currently the featherweight champion but has not defended that belt since March 2021. Currently, on the official UFC rankings, there is not even one other fighter in the featherweight division. Perhaps Nunes will defend the bantamweight title one more time, although contenders seem to be slim pickings at the moment.
