Slated to headline UFC 289 this weekend in a bantamweight title fight against Irene Aldana, two-weight promotional champion, Amanda Nunes has been urged to embrace a potential impending retirement from active competition, from one-time light heavyweight title challenger, Anthony Smith.
Nunes, the current undisputed featherweight and bantamweight champion, is slated to headline UFC 289 this weekend in the promotion’s return to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – taking main event honors against Mexican replacement, Aldana in a reworked main event clash.
Yet to feature since July of last year, Bahia native, Nunes managed to reclaim the bantamweight throne with a largely one-sided unanimous decision victory over Julianna Peña in the pair’s championship rematch in Dallas, Texas.
Amanda Nunes urged to embrace a potential retirement from MMA
Revealing recently how she had weighed up the prospect of retirement following her stunning December 2021 title submission loss to Peña, Nunes has been urged to make peace with a potential retirement from the sport, by Nebraska native Smith.
“Is it weird that, at times, I look forward to Amanda Nunes’ retirement,” Anthony Smith told Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour. “It’s a very weird sentiment I have. Sometimes when I see her in these fight weeks, in these interviews, and she’s dragged her whole family there, and then she gets in and she fights – sometimes I almost feel bad for her.”
“Like, just go enjoy your life, and just go have fun,” Smith explained. “Like, stop doing all this sh*t. Because a lot of times, she [Amanda Nunes] doesn’t seem to always enjoy it that much.”
A decorated two-weight champion, over the course of her professional career, Nunes has landed spectacular triumphs over the likes of Valentina Shevchenko, Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Holly Holm, Germaine de Randamie, Felicia Spencer, Megan Anderson, and the aforenoted, Julianna Peña.