Although UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes scored a third straight title defense in dominant fashion over Raquel Pennington (watch full highlights here) in the main event of last night’s (Sat., May 12, 2018) UFC 224 from Rio, it didn’t come without some controversy.
That controversy stemmed from the fact that Pennington had told her corner that she was ‘done’ and didn’t want to fight anymore after it appeared Nunes had broken her nose with some big knees in the fourth round of a sustained beating from the champion.
She was instead sent out to get finished in one of the bloodier scenes witnessed in recent memory following her cornerman Jason Kutz’s refusal to let her stop:
“No, no, no, girl,” Kutz said. “Don’t go out like this. C’mon, girl. I know it hurts. Let’s power through this. Let’s power through this and believe. Change your mindset. Let’s throw everything we got. We’ll recover later. Throw everything we got.”
At the UFC 224 post-fight press conference, Nunes addressed the situation after only finding out about it when her partner Nina Ansaroff told her about the fight. Speaking through an interpreter via MMAjunkie, Nunes gave her view that after Pennington was sent to the hospital, it could have been avoided as her cornerman had failed her:
“It’s sad. (My girlfriend) Nina (Ansaroff) told me. I didn’t even know. Nina told me in the locker room. It’s sad because you could avoid something. She went to the hospital. It might be a bad injury for her to go to the hospital. I already asked Nina to text her – if she needs anything I’m here. It’s sad.
“If she didn’t have the right conditioning to fight then the coach should have thrown in the towel for sure. I think my coach wouldn’t let me go through that. It’s sad. Everyone must be saying a lot of bad things about him on social media, but I really think she needs to surround herself with people who want the best for her so she can really evolve for her next fights. Unfortunately, tonight (the cornerman) failed.”
Conditioning certainly may have been an issue for Pennington after a year-and-a-half off and three surgeries, yet it seemed like the never-ending beatdown from Nunes, including the broken nose, was the reason Pennington was ready to quit.
If she was admittedly at that point, her corner should have stopped the fight, a view many have taken online and one that Nunes fully believes herself. To the champ, the relationship with a fighter and cornerman is a friendship where one has to look for the other’s safety, so she hoped Pennington would be able to surround herself with people who have her best interests in mind going forward:
“He should have listened to her at that moment,” Nunes said. “It’s important to have that friendship with your coach and for the coach to understand the athlete. I think that’s why I bond so well with my coaches and it’s working out. I hope that right now, going forward, she can be with people that really understand. People that are with her 100 percent.”
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