Julianna Peña says Amanda Nunes received’t come again to MMA after the beating she places on Kayla Harrison.
Subsequent month, Peña defends her ladies’s bantamweight title towards Harrison within the co-main occasion of UFC 316. However the bout is for extra than simply the ladies’s bantamweight title, it’s additionally for a crack at ladies’s MMA GOAT Amanda Nunes. Final month, Nunes revealed she intends to return to the UFC after her two-year retirement from the sport, to face the winner of Peña vs. Harrison. It’s a comeback Peña says she at all times knew was coming.
“I used to be at all times anticipating it,” Peña informed Ariel Helwani. “I actually mentioned it. I went over there to Vancouver, watched her lay down her gloves, and informed everyone what a liar she was and booed her the whole time as a result of I knew that she wasn’t going to be totally retired.
“That’s the factor, I hate this complete, ‘I’m retiring. I’m completed.’ Should you’re going to retire, keep retired. I don’t perceive why fighters at all times retire after which come again. What’s the level? Someone hand this woman the Oscar as a result of she had everyone like, ‘It’s over.’ I’m like, ‘No, it’s not. She’s approach too younger, she’s not going to be completed, she doesn’t know what her life is exterior of preventing, and she or he’s going to get bored and she or he’s going to wish to come again and struggle once more.’ Now that the limelight shouldn’t be on her, and it’s on Kayla and I, she sees that. I do know that she’s itching and scratching to get again in there.”
Nunes retired following her UFC 289 title protection over Irene Aldana. However after Harrison signed with the UFC in 2024, rumors started surfacing that Nunes is likely to be thinking about a comeback to face Harrison. The 2 had been closely rumored to be planning a struggle towards one another again in 2021, till Peña upset Nunes at UFC 269, sending Harrison again to the PFL. And Peña plans to wreck these plans but once more, this time by beating Harrison.
“So she’s in for a protracted night time on the workplace,” Peña mentioned. “And never solely that, however think about her first struggle at 135 kilos, going 25 minutes. It’s going to be very grueling and taxing, and at this level, it’s like, how are you going to win? You would possibly be capable to lay on high of me for one spherical, perhaps, however after that? Each minute that the struggle goes on, the longer that the struggle goes on is simply higher for me. I received the gasoline tank, I received the cardio.”
And if Peña does win? “The Venezuelan Vixen” has not been shy about wanting a trilogy struggle with Nunes, however she’s unsure that can occur if she performs spoiler as soon as once more.
“It was informed to me, ‘Amanda needs nothing to do with you,’” Peña mentioned. “‘She needs completely nothing to do with you. She hates Kayla. She seems like she has nothing to show towards you, and that she hates Kayla greater than she seems like she needs to struggle you. So if she comes again, it’s to struggle Kayla solely.’ When she sees that chaotic mess that she’s going to see on June 7, she’s not going to wish to get again in there once more and do it another time. She’ll in all probability keep ‘retired.’ However we’ll see.”
UFC 316 takes place on June 17 at Prudential Middle in Newark, N.J.
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Whereas I’m not an enormous Julianna Peña fan, I do respect that she has sufficient self-awareness to know she doesn’t win fights on type factors. “Look, I received’t beat you by technical abilities, however I’ll make this ugly and sloppy and drag you down into the muck with me. I’m gonna sludge you. That’s how I win.” Peña is really the Iowa soccer of MMA.
Ballot
If Julianna Peña wins at UFC 316, does Amanda Nunes nonetheless come again?
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