Morning Report: Amanda Nunes says Cris Cyborg had ‘no power at all,’ has to wait two years for a rematch
On Saturday night, Amanda Nunes staked her claim as the WMMA GOAT, knocking out Cris Cyborg to become the first female two-division champion in MMA history. It was a shocking performance, with Nunes stunning Cyborg early and then slumping the most dominant woman in MMA history in under a minute. Nunes knocking out Cyborg was by no means an inconceivable notion but the ease with which she did it was astonishing, even for “The Lionness.”
Cyborg has been the most feared woman in fighting for over a decade. Since losing her pro debut in 2005, the former champion had strung together 20 wins, 17 by way of stoppage, and had left a trail of broken bodies in her wake. But speaking with the UFC Unfiltered podcast recently, Nunes revealed that Cyborg’s renowned power was overstated and after eating a few punches, she realized that she didn’t need to worry about it and immediately went for the kill.
“She didn’t [hurt me] at all,” Nunes said. “Actually, when she connected the first time I saw that there was no power at all and I put my hands down, [and said] ‘I’m gonna go for it’. I don’t know if you see when I put my head down when she started punching me but I was more scared of the talk that she punches hard than exactly that she punched hard. You hear a lot that ‘She punches hard, she’s strong, she has knockout power!’ but when she landed, I moved my head because I was more scared of being hit than because the punch was strong.”
Such was the nature of Nunes’ performance that despite Cyborg’s unprecedented run of dominance, UFC President Dana White isn’t even keen on an immediate rematch. That works for Nunes whose plans on twisting the knife further on Cyborg, saying she won’t give the former champion a rematch for two years, a response to Cyborg’s pre-fight trash talk where she complained about Nunes wanting to wait to compete at the end of 2018 instead of immediately.
“Cyborg doesn’t want to fight me if it takes more than a year to prepare, and right now, I don’t think she’s gonna want it because I’m gonna ask for two years to be ready for her again,” Nunes said. “She said I wanted one year to be ready for her and she didn’t want to wait that much, she don’t wanna stay without fighting but right now I’m asking for two years for the rematch.”
Of course, there is also a practical component as well. As double champion, Nunes now has two belts to defend, and after taking a vacation and some time off to recover from some injuries she sustained before UFC 232, Nunes says she intends to defend her 135-pound title next.
“Yeah I’m gonna defend my belt, my original belt,” Nunes concluded. “Yeah, for sure I’m gonna go down, defend my belt. My division is waiting for me and we will see what happens after but I don’t think Cyborg wants to wait for two years.”
Izzy. MMA Fighting’s 2018 Breakthrough Fighter of the Year: Israel Adesanya.
DC. Coach Javier Mendez wouldn’t be surprised if we see ‘two or three’ more fights from Daniel Cormier.
Let me go. Fabricio Werdum has requested his release from the UFC.
Rematch. Amanda Nunes’ coach Conan Silveira throws water on Cris Cyborg rematch.
BJJ. Ryan Hall says he wasn’t expecting B.J. Penn to tap at UFC 232.
Big numbers. UFC 232 prelims peak at 1.46 million viewers.
Bellator 2018 Year in review.
Cyborg handling the loss like champion.
Corey Anderson calling out nice guy Jon Jones.
Jones-Gus.
Daddy’s home remix.
Bushido Talk. Jones-DC III, the UFC on ESPN, and Floyd’s Rizin fight.
Champ champ.
Solid advice from the original champ champ.
Pretty damn cool.
Call outs.
My life goal is to score a violent KO inside the Octagon and @TheBarbarianMMA seems like the perfect victim @seanshelby let’s make this happen! Anytime, anywhere.
— Alex Morono (@alexmoronomma) January 3, 2019
Jon seems like he’s fine with it.
“Any time, any place, anywhere, I’m ready,” Smith said. “I’ll fight Jon this weekend if he wants to.”
— Jon Bones Jones (@JonnyBones) January 4, 2019
Anthony Smith is gonna fight for a title in 2019. Wild times.
Max is f*cking enormous for featherweight.
Other kind of call out.
@EASPORTSUFC it’s embarrassing how a company has not paid a champion like Khabib his money for post going on 3 months
— Ali Abdelaziz (@AliAbdelaziz00) January 3, 2019
This is a very unnecessary rematch.
Chito with the strong fanny pack game.
Ovince Saint Preux (23-12) vs. Misha Cirkunov (14-4); UFC 235, March 2.
Gokhan Saki (1-2) vs. Saparbek Safarov (8-2); UFC London, MArch 16.
Thanks for reading and see y’all on Monday.
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