Josh Thomson and John McCarthy question Amanda Nunes’ reason for retirement.
Amanda Nunes will go down in history as one of the best female mixed martial arts of all time. She hung up her gloves this past weekend at UFC 289 in Canada following her win over Irene Aldana. The MMA community will be sad to see her go. Nunes felt it was time considering her family is growing and she has accomplished all she wanted to in the sport. In the wake of her retirement, many fans and fellow fighters have taken to social media to express their gratitude for her fighting career and to express their admiration for her.
Former UFC fighter turned analyst Josh Thomson is questioning why Nunes decided to retire now following such a dominant fight against Aldana. He spoke to former UFC referee “Big” John McCarthy about this topic on his YouTube channel.
“But you know what’s funny, is Amanda looked good last night” Thomson said. “She looked good in her last fight against Julianna Pena. She looked good. She looked sharp, but what like, but why? Why are you leaving? And oh, family stuff, I get it. You’re not gonna be able to make this money? I hate to break it to people, man, but two kids is f–king expensive. So she’s got a second one coming.”
Josh Thomson and John McCarthy think Dana Whit had a hand in the retirement
Thomson and McCarthy believe that UFC President Dana White may have had something to do with Nunes’ decision to retire. With Nunes’ retirement also comes the dismantling of the UFC female featherweight division. For a long time, Nunes was the champion of the division and the only fighter on the official rankings. There were other fighters to come and go through the featherweight division but it never really caught on. Now Thomson and McCarthy believe that White is breathing a sigh of relief that Nunes has decided to walk away.
“Do you think Dana maybe kind of had a little influence on this?” Thomson asked.
“Yeah,” McCarthy said. “He’s gonna shut down the featherweights. No doubt about it. So that’s out of his hair, he doesn’t have hair, but it’s out of his hair. So, yeah, that’s done. And, you know, now he’s got he’s got a good lineup of bantamweights. But his cost just went way down.”
During her historic career, Nunes fought and defeated some of the best fighters to ever go through the UFC. She defeated Ronda Rousey, Julianna Peña, Valentina Shevchenko, Holly Holm, and Cris Cyborg. She will no doubt be a first-ballot Hall of Famer in the future.
