Amanda Nunes sat on the postfight news conference dais for one last time with her two belts on either side of her Saturday night in Vancouver.
It’s rare for an all-time great MMA fighter to retire at the top of their game. Georges St-Pierre did it, but then returned four years later only to step away again after winning a second title. Henry Cejudo did it, but then returned three years later and is still active. Khabib Nurmagomedov did it and it seems like his retirement will stick where others have not.
Nunes joined that group at UFC 289. After dominating Irene Aldana for five rounds, the greatest women’s MMA fighter of all time announced she was done. She got both of her titles, laid them on the Octagon floor and put her gloves there with them.
With Nunes gone, those UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight titles will be vacant. The rankings will have new No. 1s across the board. Addressing that on the stage afterward, Nunes said something that might have come off as cocky if it weren’t so real.
“[The next champion] is going to be the fake one,” Nunes said. “It’s going to be fake forever. Whoever gets the belt now is going to just be pretending to have it. I’m gone.”
Nunes beat 11 women who had been champions in the sport at one point or another. She set just about every UFC women’s record there is and knocked off fellow luminaries along the way including Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Valentina Shevchenko, Holly Holm and Miesha Tate.
When St-Pierre and Nurmagomedov stepped aside, they left a void that was fairly quickly filled. With Nunes done, things feel different. She was Atlas holding up women’s mixed martial arts, at least in the UFC.
What now? Brett Okamoto, Marc Raimondi and Jeff Wagenheim opine on the post-Nunes world of the UFC.
