UFC 131 Will Be Diego Nunes’ Moment To Show That He Deserves A Featherweight Title Fight
Diego Nunes is the great unknown on this UFC 131 card. He has a career record of 16-1, including a 5-1 mark between UFC and WEC. He will challenge Kenny Florian, the lightweight star who is moving down to 145-pounds for the first time. Can he get into featherweight title contention with a win?
From MMAFighting.com:
Talk about an under-the-radar contender. Nunes is hardly known by most fans despite a 16-1 record, including wins over top featherweights like Raphael Assuncao and Mike Brown.
The former WEC champion Brown was a fairly big-name opponent for Nunes, but he pales in name recognition to longtime UFC star Kenny Florian. If Nunes can beat Florian on Saturday, he vaults himself forward in a hurry. Everyone likes new contenders, and Nunes would clearly announce himself as such with a definitive win.
Nunes hasn’t had the most exciting fights recently, though, he has been successful the last three times that he has fought. He is going against one of the top-ranked lightweight fighters in the world. All of this is a recipe for a breakout performance.
With no clear contender for Jose Aldo in the featherweight division, Nunes has everything right there for the taking. This fight is the biggest opportunity that he has had in his professional career. If he wins, he will have earned a fight against the champion.
I would like to see him show a little more than he did in his first UFC fight against Mike Brown at UFC 125, at least something that would make me believe he could defeat Aldo. But with a win, it will be hard to keep him down any longer.