UFC 289 Aftermath: The Legacy of Amanda Nunes

UFC 289 marked the end of the legendary career of Amanda Nunes. The most accomplished women’s MMA fighter of all time, Nunes hung up the gloves after a one-sided win over Irene Aldana in the main event. Nunes held two belts, although the quality of her featherweight title is somewhat questionable. Regardless, Nunes is one of the best ever. On today’s Aftermath, we are going to look at Nunes’ win over Irene Aldana but also review her career to honor her body of work in the UFC.

Nunes’ Career

After her third career loss in Invicta FC, Nunes got the call to the UFC at 7-3. She was heavy-hitting but raw in talent. Her Octagon debut was against Sheila Gaff and she finished that fight in the first round. Then Nunes was thrown to the wolves, so to speak, when she took on Germaine de Randamie. A skilled striker in her own right, de Randamie presented a tough challenge for the young Nunes. It was Nunes’ elbows that put de Randamie away.

After losing to Cat Zingano in her third fight with the promotion, Nunes went on an absolute tear. She won 12 fights straight and beat Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann, future flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko twice, Miesha Tate, Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, de Randamie again, and more. The crowning Nunes moment was when she moved up to 145 pounds to take on Cristiane Justino. “Cyborg” hadn’t lost an MMA fight since her debut, which added up to a mind-numbing 20-fight win streak. Nunes went in and knocked “Cyborg” out in the first round of an amazing firefight.

The most insane stat about Nunes was that at one point the champion had beaten every champion in the women’s 125, 135 and 145-pound divisions with the exception of Nicco Montano at 125 and now Alexa Grasso. Valentina Shevchenko was the perennial flyweight champion and Nunes beat her twice. The bantamweight lineage went Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, Miesha Tate, Nunes and Julianna Pena. Nunes beat every one of them. The 145-pound title changed hands from de Randamie to “Cyborg” and Nunes beat them as well.

Nunes’ career is iconic, just as iconic as seeing her lay not just her gloves, but both belts in the center of the cage to announce her retirement. Nobody else can lay claim to that.

Aldana never stood a chance

Now on to our analytical stuff. Aldana came into UFC 289 and never truly stood a chance. From the jump, she was timid, gun-shy and couldn’t really find her range for the most part. Nunes showed us a different version of herself than the one from the beginning of her career. At 35 years old, she doesn’t have the same power she showed against “Cyborg,” whom she beat when she was 30. Instead, Nunes was tactical, not a brawler. She tore Aldana apart from range, threatening the takedown to get the hands lowered. Aldana didn’t lower her hands for the most part, but seeing Nunes put in the effort to do so made me think she was improving and evolving as a fighter while I was watching the fight.

When Nunes lost to Pena, she did not adjust to her opponent’s dipping jab by moving her head. Instead, she switched to southpaw for the entire fight. In Beforemath, we talked about how Nunes doing this was the long way around the problem and how she could use some head movement to open up her own strikes. Well, she didn’t move her head in this fight either, but we did see Nunes switch stances and fight out of southpaw instead of staying orthodox the entire time.

As we see at the start of Round 2, (1 & 2) Nunes came out in an orthodox stance. Notice how her body is turned with her right hand in front instead of her left. While it’s technically a cross, Nunes uses it like a jab and steps through to southpaw. (3) Now in southpaw, Nunes looks to attack from there. It’s not long living and Nunes (4) throws a teep/push kick and brings her rear foot down into (5) orthodox again.

While Nunes did switch, she wasn’t quite as comfortable fighting out of southpaw as she was in orthodox, and her offense showed the difference. The clip above was pretty much the best offensive output Nunes used from southpaw stance all night. The thesis from Beforemath was, “What improvements should we see from Amanda Nunes?” That was an improvement. Nunes took what she learned in preparation for the rematch with Pena, fighting out of southpaw exclusively, and incorporated it into a gameplan where she could utilize the new weapons later on. That’s the sign of someone still trying to learn and Nunes learned a lot.

via GIPHY

Another thing Nunes did quite well was something all fighters should be doing, especially if they won’t defend, which is throwing the low kick. Nunes was 17 of 20 on low kicks against Aldana. Aldana refused to check a low kick pretty much all night. With Aldana scared to get in the pocket and wanting to fight at range, Nunes was right to throw the low kick as much as she did. Kicks are a fighter’s longest-range weapon and with Aldana having an almost credible threat with the cross, Nunes stayed at range while piling up points on her opponent.

With Aldana wanting to keep her guard high, Nunes needed to split said guard. (1) Nunes will see Aldana coming forward and will look to split the guard of Aldana. Nunes also knows that there’s a possibility that Aldana closes her guard if she comes up the middle and takes that into consideration. (2) Instead of a jab, Nunes gets a little more in the pocket and fires an elbow up the middle. Aldana brings her hands together and blocks the elbow as mentioned earlier. With the guard being even more closed, Nunes (3) comes around the side with another elbow made possible by being in the pocket from the larger than normal elbow on the step-in.

All in all, it was a decent performance from Nunes, but a 35-year-old bantamweight is decrepit in sporting terms. She retired as a double champ—if you believe in the women’s featherweight division. Laying down both the belts in the ring to announce her retirement as opposed to just her gloves was perhaps the coolest way anyone has ever retired. Hats off to Nunes for retiring while on top of her division(s). She is without a doubt the greatest women’s fighter of all time. Now we are on to the next era of the women’s bantamweight division.