All that anger directed at Ronda Rousey from Amanda Nunes following their fight stemmed from feeling disrespected as a champion.
Amanda Nunes is finally admitting she wasn’t happy with the way the UFC promoted her leading up to UFC 207.
The women’s bantamweight champion received scant screen time in most of the ads and commercials leading up to her huge fight with Ronda Rousey at the end of December. At the time, she claimed it was no big deal. Less media for her meant more time for her to mentally prepare for the task at hand. But in a new interview with FOX Sports on site in Houston for the Super Bowl, “The Lioness” revealed that the whole thing made her pretty mad.
“It was me and my girlfriend against the world, the whole week,” Nunes said. “Nothing about me. Everything about her [Ronda Rousey]. I was the champion, and to go through that was pretty hard and it hurt me a lot. All the promotion, all the TV. I was pissed off. But I keep everything … I was mad already. Imagine if I keep saying I’m mad, I’m mad, it’s gonna be on another level. So I keep everything smooth. But after the fight, I blowed up.”
Nunes recently apologized to Rousey online for the things she said following the fight, which included an interview with TMZ Sports where she claimed Rousey was a media creation of the UFC.
“I say a couple of bad words, I never say that before. And I don’t want people to be reminded of that moment. Of course it’s reported. But I want people to know who I am. I have a lot of respect for Ronda Rousey but the way that fight was viewed was crazy. I never fight mad before, that was the first fight in my career I fought mad before. Even after the fight backstage I was still mad.”
Even while discussing the apology, Nunes seemed eager to move off the constant Ronda Rousey talk so we could start concentrating on a little Amanda Nunes talk.
“[Ronda] did a lot for this sport, she was the most dominating for a while. But now everything is changing. This sport is moving forward. And she takes days off, it’s her fault, it’s not my fault. Now we have a new champion, the UFC has to be everything about the belt, that’s why I have the belt!”
A few more dominating championship wins with the UFC promotional machine firmly behind her, and it will be impossible to ignore the Brazilian slugger. Right now all signs point towards a rematch against fellow striking specialist Valentina Shevchenko, who declared she was unimpressed with Amanda’s victory over the women’s division’s biggest star. There’s no date set for that scrap, but we’ll let you know as soon as the ink dries on a contract.
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