There’s a very short list of fighters who have held world titles simultaneously in the UFC — and even less so in the female ranks.
Amanda Nunes, perhaps the most dominant female mixed martial arts fighter in history, is at the very summit of that list. The Brazilian, who holds the female world title at 135-pounds and 145-pounds, has been defeated just once in the cage dating back to 2014 in a sequence of 13 wins which has seen her defeat MMA royalty in Ronda Rousey, Cris Cyborg, Valentina Shevchenko, Miesha Tate and Holly Holm (among others).
However, it didn’t quite go her way in her first meeting with Julianna Pena in December 2021, where the winning streak of the ‘Lioness’ was shattered by a second round rear-naked choke applied by underdog fighter Pena in a result which sent seismic shocks throughout the sport’s landscape.
The second meeting, which you can see below, was more what was expected of Nunes, as she employed a gameplan of oppressive top control in the later rounds to stifle any momentum that Pena managed to gain.
Nunes and Pena were scheduled to rematch in June before an injury to the challenger removed her from the bout. Nunes will instead fight Irene Aldana in the UFC 289 headliner on June 10.
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