Megan Anderson believes Amanda Nunes is taking a big risk running it back immediately with Julianna Pena.
On Saturday at American Airlines Center in Dallas, Nunes rematches Pena for the bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 277. After drawing Nunes into an intense brawl, Pena won the first round and submitted Nunes.
In the aftermath, Nunes blamed the loss on injuries and a bad training camp that she simply tried to push through. Anderson, who lost to Nunes at UFC 259, tends to agree that something was certainly off with “The Lioness” that night.
“The Amanda that I saw in that fight was not the Amanda that I fought,” Anderson said on The MMA Hour. “She didn’t look like herself. The best way for me to describe it is, I remember once I trained with a head cold. … It literally felt like my whole body was discombobulated. I would try to throw as fast as I could, it felt slow, it felt sluggish, the lightest jab felt like my head was bouncing around inside of my skull. The lightest punches literally felt like they were going to knock me out. So that’s kind of what it looked like when you watch Amanda in that second round. She couldn’t move her body properly.
“There’s obviously a reason for that. Was she training enough? Did it help her lose weight? That’s the first time she’d cut to 135 pounds in two years. We’ve never seen her lose that much weight. Did she manage to properly hydrate? [COVID-19]. Before she had COVID. Many people claim that COVID has caused them to have respiratory problems and heart issues. This is a temporary side effect. … It really depends on many factors.
“I like that she’s changed up her training, because that could be a good thing. This could explain why she changed her training. She could have been surrounded by a lot of “yes” people and needed to make a change. We don’t know. She and her team are the only ones who know. But I definitely think this fight’s going to look very different, because I don’t think Amanda was 100 percent herself in that fight fight.”
Since losing to Pena, Nunes has made changes to her preparation, leaving her longtime camp, American Top Team, to open up her own gym.
It’s an enormous change to leave the gym where she was a champion in two divisions. Anderson warns that it carries significant risk.
“I think it’s kind of one of those situations where she just wants to immediately like, ‘Okay, it was a fluke,'” Anderson said. I can see Amanda’s point of view. [but] You’ve changed many aspects about your camp. How do you predict how it will perform during an actual fight? All these modifications that you made to the camp. It’s a huge risk, but it can sometimes be a good thing .”
While the odds are certainly closer than the first fight, Nunes is still a sizable favorite for the rematch. Anderson isn’t certain that Nunes will win the title again, but she thinks that UFC 277 may be able to do so.
” This is a fight. Anderson stated that anything can happen. “But I think if Amanda goes into this fight 100 percent, there shouldn’t be any area that she is at a disadvantage. She is very versatile. She’s got a tremendous amount of power, but she can also go five rounds… She has the ability to so that’s why it was very odd the way that it worked out…
“I got Rose Namajunas vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk I vibes from [the first fight]. Joanna was very upset when she first came out. She said that she had lost weight and didn’t have enough water. However, it was more intense and it went to the end. So I’m not saying Amanda will win it, but if she comes in at 100 percent it can play more into her favor because I feel like she has more well-rounded skills to beat Julianna than Julianna has to beat Nunes.”
