American Top Team coach Everton Oliveira is confident that Amanda Nunes will be able to beat Cris Cyborg to become the greatest female fighter of all-time.
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes has pretty much beat every single challenger put in front of her. In December at UFC 232, she will be taking on an entirely different task when she jumps to 145-pounds to challenge Cris Cyborg for the featherweight title.
Cyborg is deemed as one of the most (if not the most) dominant female fighters in the game today, but for Nunes’ coach Everton Bittar Oliveira, that reign will end soon.
“(Amanda) will become a two-division champion,” Oliveira told MMA Fighting. “She has been dominating at 135, retired two of the biggest stars at 135, beat Valentina (Shevchenko) twice, so she undoubtedly is the greatest bantamweight in history.”
“Cris is the best featherweight in history, so beating Cris automatically puts Amanda’s name as the greatest of all-time.”
Nunes currently weighs 165 pounds, with still three months left until fight night. Oliviera is also assured that the jump in weight classes will actually be beneficial for “The Lionness”, particularly in terms of conditioning.
“My main goal with Amanda is to control her weight gain and develop a training base to make sure she gets to featherweight as strong as she is at bantamweight,” Oliveira said. “There’s no doubt that Amanda is the strongest fighter at 135, no one hits harder than her, no one has more power than her, but that’s a combination of several factors. At featherweight, it’s 10 pounds more. We will get her ready for five rounds at a high pace. My main goal is to plan her training to make sure she peaks in December.”
“(Her conditioning) will probably be even better because she doesn’t have to suffer cutting weight,” he added. “Weight cutting can hurt an athlete’s performance the next day. Some athletes deal with it better than others. Amanda has evolved drastically in both technical and physical terms, so I don’t see any problems with her fighting five rounds at 145.”
“She proved in Rio de Janeiro that she can fight at a higher pace for five rounds and finish her opponent in the end.”
UFC 232 takes place on December 29th at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Another announced fight on the card is the lightweight fight between B.J. Penn and Ryan Hall.