You’re not the only one noticing a distinct lack of promotion for the UFC’s return to Rio de Janeiro.
Noticed a distinct lack of hype for UFC 224 in Rio de Janeiro? You’re not the only one.
The UFC pay-per-view set for May 12th is headlined by women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes taking on Raquel Pennington, and also features a strong undercard with “Jacare” Souza vs. Kelvin Gastelum, Vitor Belfort vs. Lyoto Machida, and the triumphant return of Mackenzie Dern. But it’s all getting overshadowed by UFC 225 featuring Robert Whittaker vs. Yoel Romero 2, Rafael dos Anjos vs Colby Covington, and the dubious return of CM Punk.
You can’t argue with what people like and are getting excited for. In North America at least, that means UFC 225 is being dubbed the next big must see event and sometimes it feels like even the UFC sees it that way. That led to an amusing Tweet reply to the promotion from Amanda Nunes:
RT if you’re HYPED for #UFC225
We are JUST under 6?? weeks away. pic.twitter.com/kLwLDt4SzY
— UFC (@ufc) April 29, 2018
We are less than 2 week for 224 ?
— Amanda Nunes (@Amanda_Leoa) April 29, 2018
Nunes is no stranger to the UFC overlooking her. There was a distinct lack of push from the UFC when she defended her belt against Ronda Rousey. And then things seemed to get way worse after Nunes was forced to pull out of UFC 213 on the day of the event over chronic sinusitis, a decision the UFC strongly disagreed with. But Amanda seems pretty zen about the situation considering everything.
“I know I’m not the beautiful girl and I don’t have the blonde hair and the blue eyes,” she said back in September of 2017. “I am not the kind of face the UFC wants to put out there, but I’m OK with that. I’m going to live my life and be happy. If the UFC decides to promote me that would be awesome, but I trust them. The UFC knows what they are doing. If they think they should promote someone else, fine. Just give me the fights and let me do my job and I will be happy.”
Raquel Pennington is coming into UFC 224 on a four fight win streak with her last fight being a decision victory over former champ Miesha Tate in November of 2016. Pennington will be the third title defense for Nunes, who most recently won a split decision over Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 215.