Paths to Victory: How Julianna Pena can catch lightning in a bottle again versus Amanda Nunes at UFC 277

UFC 277 takes place this Saturday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. The main event is an immediate title rematch between women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena and former champion Amanda Nunes. Pena authored one of the biggest upsets in MMA history in their first fight, submitting Nunes in the second round at UFC 269, and now “The Venezuelan Vixen” looks to make it two for two over the women’s MMA GOAT.

Let’s look at the things each lady needs to win, what X-factors are in play and finally what will happen Saturday night.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Paths to Victory for Julianna Pena at UFC 277

Pena does not have the technical ability to fight (nor Nunes in many ways, but that is for another day). She is not a skilled striker and her defense is weak. Pena has been a part of many women’s lives and they have survived. Fortunately, she doesn’t need to excel in any of those areas to have success against Nunes, because the playbook on how to win is already out there. She wrote it. At UFC 269, Pena took home the bantamweight belt because of three key factors: Her jab, her durability, and her ability to make the fight ugly. She’ll need to do a lot of the same again in order to pull off another upset.

In their first fight, Nunes had a solid opening round, but in the second, Pena uglied the fight up. She drew Nunes into brawling exchanges by simply willing it into existence. Pena was content to trade one-for-one in the middle, and Nunes, who could probably knock out a moose, made the reasonable calculation that these exchanges favored her. Pena’s chin was more resilient than that of a moose. While her face turned into tenderized hamburger, Pena didn’t crack. She began to land better shots during the exchanges. Before long Pena was repeatedly catching Nunes on the end of her jab, slicing through her winging shots and rattling “The Lioness.” And once that happened, the fight was all but over.

To win this time around, Pena needs to do more of the same. Pena isn’t going to win a classical kickboxing bout with Nunes, and given Nunes’ ability to shut down takedowns, Pena spamming single-legs is likely to help Nunes more than herself. Instead, Pena needs to consent to getting lumped up early, but making sure that she’s landing back when it happens. Nunes will be forced to face the issue by Pena, who should not let her down with her volume or hit her with tons of jabs. If it does, she’ll likely get into another brawl. Cardio has long been Nunes’ achilles’ heel, and after a few rounds of pushing the pace, the former champion will tire and the current champ can then start getting to work with her grappling game. If Pena really puts the pressure on, Nunes may fold in the championship rounds. If not, it’s likely enough to make a decision.

Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC

Paths to victory for Amanda Nunes at UFC 277

Unsurprisingly, for Nunes to reclaim the title, she needs to do almost none of what she did in their first encounter. Fortunately for “The Lioness,” there’s a a near note-perfect blueprint out there for her to follow. Conor McGregor laid it out for her.

Pena-Nunes is essentially a carbon copy of McGregor vs. Nate Diaz I. McGregor was a bit overconfident, came out swinging, tagged Diaz repeatedly with shots that normally finish his opponents, and then when Diaz was still there, he swung even harder and started getting caught before eventually gassing out and getting rear-naked choked. A few months later, McGregor won the rematch by fighting a much smarter fight, and Nunes needs to do the same. She should do the exact same thing McGregor did.

McGregor won his rematch with Diaz primarily by refusing to get drawn into the sort of high-volume exchanges that favored Diaz. The pace stayed fairly high, but the engagements were short and McGregor did a ton of work with leg kicks at range — nearly a quarter of his strikes were leg kicks — because Diaz is awful at defending them. Pena is also terrible at stopping low kicks, and mostly just consents to taking them and trying to throw back. In their first fight, Nunes did a great job of chopping the lead leg before getting sucked into a brawl. This should be her priority this time.

Another comparison point with the McGregor-Diaz bouts is the power. McGregor was aggressive in the first bout and punched himself out. In the rematch, knowing that Diaz could take his best shots, McGregor let his power speak for itself instead of building a game plan around landing big shots. McGregor allowed the big shots to come to him, rather than forcing them. This resulted in McGregor dropping Diaz several times. Nunes could do the exact same. Pena is extremely hittable and will walk herself onto big shots. Nunes can take advantage of that, but needs to make sure she exits afterward and doesn’t get sucked down into the muck again.

Let’s not forget that Nunes holds the most technical and physical advantage in this fight. She’s faster, hits harder, is the cleaner striker, and can hold her own in the grappling, but she doesn’t have the gas tank and Pena’s too durable to run over. So Nunes simply needs to make sure the fight is contested in a manner that minimizes those attributes for Pena. She certainly has the ability to do it, as her sterling record in rematches shows.

X-Factor

By far the biggest X-factor in this fight is the change of camps by Nunes. After the Pena loss, “The Lioness” left American Top Team to open up her own gym. This is an enormous unknown going into such a big fight. ATT is one of the very best gyms in the world and built Nunes into a two-division champion. They know Nunes like no one else and can help her achieve success. Leaving that environment to go to a gym of your own creation is either brilliant or insane, and we’re going to find out which one.

Prediction

Despite picking her for the upset in their first encounter, I can’t bring myself to back Pena in the rematch. Nunes has more tools in the toolbox to use and this time she knows what she’s getting into. We’ll see a more careful approach this time from “The Lioness”, similar to the rematches she had with Germaine de Randamie or Valentina Shevchenko. Pena may try to force the issue again, but I don’t expect Nunes to play that game, and instead be content to out-point her over 25 minutes.

Amanda Nunes wins by unanimous decision.