What do you like to see out of a champion so dominant that her only
challenger is truly herself and her dedication? What to do when
simply winning isn’t enough anymore and domination is the goal now?
Amanda
Nunes faces that problem. At 22-5, Nunes has been just short of
perfect in her mixed martial arts career with the UFC. She returns
this weekend to face
Irene
Aldana as the headliner of
UFC
289. While she did lose in December of 2021, Nunes redeemed
herself by avenging the embarrassing loss to
Julianna
Pena and reclaimed her long-held title. Now, in the wake of
Pena pulling out from their trilogy bout, Nunes takes on Aldana on
relatively short notice.
In today’s edition of Beforemath, our weekly preview of the
upcoming UFC fights, we are looking at Aldana’s path to victory
against an opponent as dominant as
Amanda
Nunes. We will also be looking at Nunes. Our goal there will be
to see what improvements we would like to see from a champion whose
reign includes wins over every women’s bantamweight champion in
history.
Biggest Test of Her Life
Toppling a giant like Nunes is a tough go for Aldana, but she has
the opportunity to join the Mexican wave of champions that include
Brandon
Moreno, interim champion
Yair
Rodriguez and her
Alexa
Grasso. Aldana has the toughest mountain to scale than all of
them; even more so than Grasso’s win over
Valentina
Shevchenko. Nunes did beat Shevchenko twice, after all.
Aldana’s skills do not match up with Nunes that well. She has great
hands with good power; Nunes has more power and is content to sit
in the pocket to go lick-for-lick with someone. Just ask
Cristiane
Justino how that turned out. Aldana will not want to stay in
the pocket with Nunes, something that Nunes will want to do almost
the entire fight.
For Aldana, not exiting to the rear is of the upmost importance.
Nunes’ seek and destroy mentality thrives when an opponent backs
straight up. With the rigid ring we watch fighters fight in, you
can only go so far back before you hit a hard, unforgiving wall and
cannot back up any further. In a boxing ring, you can lean out
beyond the ropes. But the cage is taller than everyone in the UFC
except
Alexander
Volkov and leaning out is not possible. Aldana is going to want
to move horizontally, or side to side. This will keep her off the
center line and circling away instead of backing straight up where
Nunes can walk her down.