The main event of UFC 277 this weekend is the rematch of last December's bantamweight title fight. That night, we saw Julianna Pena turn the MMA world on it's head as she was able to pull of the upset over Amanda Nunes that very few thought was even possible, let alone would've predicted. I think that result caused a lot of people to take a step back and reevaluate how we were talking about Amanda Nunes going into that fight. Amanda had built up a reputation for essentially being this unstoppable force that was just going to bulldoze her way through everyone put in front of her. That wasn't the case with Pena as after she was able to get through a rough patch in the first, Nunes didn't seem to really have anything else for her. It was an absolutely incredible fight on one of the best cards in recent memory. We are now getting to see whether that result was more of a fluke or whether Julianna is here to stay and really start to build an incredible legacy of her own as a long term champion. I said the other day I wasn't very excited for this fight and I don't know that I would say that excitement is the right word, but I am very interested to see how this plays out. Let's not waste any time.
For the first time in what seems like forever, Amanda Nunes will be in the blue corner. This is almost uncharted territory for Amanda as she is coming off of a loss for the first time in almost 8 years. Prior to the loss to Pena last December, Nunes had won 12 fights in a row, 8 of which she won inside the distance and of those 8, 7 of them ended inside the very first round. The only fight she finished outside of the first came against Raquel Pennington incase you were wondering. The idea of a fighter feeling invincible or unstoppable isn't new as so many fighters have been talked about that way in the history of MMA. What made this one feel so much different, at least in my opinion, is that to so many fans, Amanda legitimately was unbeatable to them. Amanda's last loss before this was back in 2014. Think about how many fans the sport has gained since those days. There was a significant portion of the fanbase who had never seen Amanda lose in real time and any fans who found the sport after the second Shevchenko fight in 2017 had never even seen her in a competitive fight. To see her lose in a test of will power like that where both women were just standing in front of each other and trading was just a surreal moment. Momentum wise, this is a situation that is almost new to Amanda, so we'll have to see how she reacts. Style wise, Amanda is pretty well rounded. She's a pretty solid all around grappler. She has her black belt in BJJ and has shown and ability to lock in submissions when she has the chance. Women's MMA isn't known for a ton of pure wrestling, but Amanda represents herself there as well. She can get takedowns at a pretty consistent clip when she wants to. Generally speaking, grappling does sap one's energy a little faster than striking, so I think that may be why Amanda doesn't really look to ground the fight as much as maybe she could. Ultimately, her standup is what has made her into the current WMMA GOAT. Nunes simply possesses power that very few women do. When she hits people, they take notice and usually they're not on their feet too much longer. Not many women have taken Amanda's shots and just kept going like Julianna was able to that night. That isn't to say that Nunes is just some Derrick Lewis like power puncher either. She has the ability to be technical and diverse as well. She has extremely powerful kicks that she can deliver to all three levels in impressive fashion. Amanda has intangible qualities which I think is what sort of gave her that invincibility type of aura. She always seemed so calm, even when fighting the biggest names in the entire sport on the biggest stages. She's beaten Valentina Shevchenko, Ronda Rousey, and Cris Cyborg in impressive fashion (excluding the second Valentina fight) and there has to be an extreme sense of confidence after taking out those kinds of names in the way she has. I think the thing that a lot of people glossed over, myself included, is that Amanda isn't a perfect fighter. She just went so long without having anyone being able to take advantage of them that we all either forgot about them, ignored them, assumed she had gotten over them, or, like I said about the new fans, may not have actually known about them. Her biggest weakness, going back to her Strikeforce days, is that she doesn't have amazing cardio. She's never really gassed completely the way we saw her in the first Pena fight, but she did have a tendency to slow down as the fight progressed. What typically saved her is that even in fights that were going the distance, she was almost always in complete control. Outside of the Valentina fights, she was facing very little resistance. When she went to decision with Germaine de Randamie and Felicia Spencer, those fights weren't really close, so while she was going the distance, she was in complete control of the fight and pace. In the first Pena fight, Julianna was controlling the pace, even though she was losing. Eventually, that high pace tired Amanda enough that she just had to stand her ground and start trading. Her being as tired as she was took enough steam off of her punches that Julianna could take them without backing up and she was being hurt by the punches coming back her way until she just couldn't take it anymore. She ended up getting backed up against the cage and then taken down. Julianna started to lock in the early stages of a rear naked choke and Amanda tapped before it was really even completed. Amanda needs to do a better job of controlling the pace and she needs to have her cardio in a better place coming into this fight. 7 minutes of cardio just isn't going to get it done. Amanda Nunes is still the greatest women's MMA fighter of all time and one fight doesn't change that, but she has a big test coming up tomorrow night. She needed to take this more seriously than she did the first fight and I am going to assume that she did.
Julianna Pena enters this fight under much different circumstances than she did the first time around. Instead of a long shot underdog with nothing to lose, she has legitimate expectations, despite still being a pretty nice sized underdog. Pena's MMA story is kind of an interesting one so, I do want to give her resume quickly. She won her official UFC debut to become the TUF season 18 winner, but tore her ACL as well as some other knee ligaments and structures in preparation for her second fight. She ended up missing over a year after surgery. She would eventually return and win 3 fights in a row including defeats of Cat Zingano and Jessica Eye. She earned an opportunity against Valentina Shevchenko, which she would lose via submission. Pena then got pregnant and was away from the sport for over 2 years before eventually returning in a win over Nico Montano. A loss to Germaine de Randamie was then followed by a win over Sara McMann, which got her into the Nunes fight. Stylistically, Pena doesn't really have any skill advantages over Nunes, which is why so many didn't give her a chance the first time around. Pena is more of a grappler typically and she has shown an ability to get submissions somewhat consistently. Her wrestling is also pretty good and she gets takedowns both frequently and efficiently. My concern going into the first fight was that Amanda would just be too strong and those takedowns wouldn't be there to finish, but after Amanda got tired, she went down pretty easily. Pena is most comfortable on the ground and despite the way the last fight went, I still think that is the safest place for her in this one. On the feet, Pena is decent, but unspectacular. She isn't really the most technical, but she isn't just winging punches either. She doesn't land with outrageous volume, but she isn't low output either. Normally, she does a great job of limiting the damage coming back her way by being all the way in or all the way out. I think the biggest thing for her in this one will be her ability to push a pace and absorb shots without being hurt. She did that the first time, but doing it again is far from a given. It is getting kind of difficult to not compare her skills to Amanda's or not talk about them in reference to the first fight, so I think I'm just going to get into that now.
I've been thinking about this fight all day and I keep coming back to this question: What's changed since the last fight? The answer that I've come to is "not too much". Amanda left ATT and trained at her own gym, but I don't know what conclusions I can draw from that. The problem is that I don't really know what this answer is supposed to lead me to. Nothing has changed from 7 months ago when Amanda gassed and got beaten up. At the same time, nothing has changed from 7 months ago when Amanda was a -1200 favorite or whatever the line was. Ultimately, I don't think Pena is going to bring a drastically different strategy because I don't really know what other options she has. She has to plan on largely doing the same types of things. She has to come out and put on the pressure and force Amanda to fight at her pace. That is what caused Amanda to gas the first time. Julianna drug her into a fight and event though Amanda won the first round, she was forced to work at a rate that she couldn't maintain. In order for Pena to win again, I think she has to get back to that. I don't think she can just straight up beat Amanda in a pure test of skill. If she tries to just out grapple her, I think Amanda is too big and strong while having good takedown defense. If she just tries to out strike her, I think Amanda is more technical, while being faster, more powerful, and more diverse. If this fight looks nice and stays as a contest of martial arts skill, that benefits Amanda. Pena needs to put on so much pressure that all of that stuff goes out the window and they start "fighting" as opposed to "competing". The problem in all of this is that it is going to requite Julianna to stay out of danger like she did in the first fight. She took Amanda's power and came out on the other side of it ok, which doesn't happen very often. Can she do that again? I'm not sure. We just don't see women absorb Amanda's power and keep coming forward like that. Julianna got hit hard a few times and ended up getting dropped. That could easily see her be finished this time. Her being able to walk through Amanda's right hands was an underrated talking point coming out of the last fight and she is going to need to do it a second time. That may be the biggest question I have coming into this fight. In short, Julianna needs to do everything she can to make this an exact copy of the first fight. Even if Amanda trained harder for this one, she isn't likely to be able to compete at that pace for an entire 25 minutes. Amanda is the one that really needs to address what happened and come in with a plan to combat it. I want to mention that their last fight was the first time that Amanda had cut to 135 in a couple of years. She is getting older now and maybe that cut just took more out of her than it used to or maybe just making that cut for the first time in so long drained her more than it did when she was making 135 more consistently. There's no way for us to know, but it is at least a thought to consider. Amanda needs to find a way to keep the pace of this fight down. I don't think Amanda has ever really had the cardio to just go full Justin Gaethje for 25 minutes and throw bombs with Julianna. I say this because even if she has improved her cardio from the last fight, she can't think she is going to come out and trade and be able to maintain that level of output. If Julianna comes out and is in her face again, she needs to either blast her on the spot and finish the fight or find a way to keep her away. If Julianna is just pumping out volume in her face again, she's going to get put right back in the same spot. She's going to have to either move laterally and circle out or plant her feet and start trading. I don't think she has the cardio to do either of those things for an extended period of time, even with her cardio at it's best. If Amanda can keep the fight at range and slowed down, I think she wins pretty easily. She can try throwing kicks up the middle to keep that range, but does risk getting them caught and taken down. I'm sort of talking myself in circles at this point, so I'm just going to leave it at that.
What do you guys think? What are your predictions? How do you see this fight playing out? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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