Amanda Nunes intends to keep on making history as she goes through the final days ahead of her title defense against Holly Holm at UFC 239.
Confidence is at an all-time high for UFC double champion Amanda Nunes.
In the final days ahead of her title defense against former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC 239, the ‘Lioness’ tells Combate she sees herself going down in history as the greatest MMA fighter to ever live.
Additionally, the 31-year-old claimed she also intends to keep on defending the featherweight title, which she won after knocking out Cris Cyborg in her last outing, but also explained how she learned to be a more collected fighter over the years in order be where she is now.
“I’m going to be honest with you, I am the best MMA fighter of all time in general (male or female),” Nunes said. “I’m going to keep on defending the featherweight title. I’m going to keep on making history. All the things I went through, my losses, those really helped me. I’ve been through moments where I thought ‘I’m going to step in there and I’m going to crush her, you have no idea.’ Not today. I respect my opponents, I learned that from life. I used to think I would step in there, throw one punch and the other girl would go down and not get up again. Everytime I thought that, I lost. Fighting taught me, I learned from life. It’s a school, I’m still learning.”
Despite seeing herself as the best MMA fighter of all time and enjoying all the gratification she has gotten out of her feats in the Octagon, Nunes says she hasn’t lost touch with reality and likes to remember everything she went through in her career up until the moment she became the first UFC female double champion.
“It’s very gratifying (to be the best MMA fighter of all time),” Nunes said. “It makes me very happy. I stop, think and remember my journey, it makes you emotional, really, because I believed in myself. Even when life was sh-tty, when I lost, I was supposed to be the next one to fight Ronda [Rousey], then I lost to Cat [Zingano]. The fight slipped through my fingers. I was going to be next. I went back home in a panic, for sure. Nobody loses and laughs about it.
“After many talks with Nina [Ansaroff], my coaches, some changes, I started to look for answers to my questions. When I look at all that, everything I sought after that fight and all the changes I made. Man, it was so crazy. I did research, I looked for psychologists, too, I did many blood tests, I switched teams. I wanted to be a new athlete, erase everything that happened in my life and start from scratch. It was surreal. Everything put me on my path, doors began to open. When me and Nina talk about it, it’s inexplicable. To be on the inside and see how people look at you, it’s a crazy rollercoaster. It was crazy to live through all of that. To erase everything and from there on out never stop again. To become the best of all time. Crazy stuff.”
Amanda Nunes is now expected to take on Holly Holm in a fight for the bantamweight title at UFC 239, in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 6. The card will be headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between the champion, Jon Jones, and challenger Thiago Santos.