Dana White isn’t the only one who doesn’t sound interested in giving Cris Cyborg an immediate shot at regaining her lost featherweight title. The former queen of the 145 lb division more than ready for a rematch against Amanda Nunes, after suffering a first round KO to the bantamweight champion at UFC 232. It was an idea that the UFC President quickly pushed back against.
“It was a pretty convincing win,” White told the assembled media, when asked about the possibility of running the fight back sometime in the immediate future.
And that’s a sentiment that Amanda Nunes is echoing as well. The ‘Lioness’ made an appearance on the UFC Unfiltered podcast following her ascension to double-champ status. When asked about the possibility of taking a rematch, she made it clear that if Cyborg wants to get another title shot, it’s going to be a long wait (transcript via MMAFighting).
“Cyborg doesn’t want to fight me if it takes more than a year to prepare,” Nunes said, referencing Cyborg’s comments about the prolonged buildup to their superfight, “and right now, I don’t think she’s gonna want it because I’m gonna ask for two years to be ready for her again. She said I wanted one year to be ready for her and she didn’t want to wait that much, she don’t wanna stay without fighting but right now I’m asking for two years for the rematch.”
Adding insult to injury, Nunes also explained why she decided to trade shots with her notorious power-punching opponent right out of the gate. Once she felt Cyborg’s power, “I saw that there was no power at all...”
“She didn’t [hurt me] at all,” Nunes said. “Actually, when she connected the first time I saw that there was no power at all and I put my hands down, [and said] ‘I’m gonna go for it’. I don’t know if you see when I put my head down when she started punching me but I was more scared of the talk that she punches hard than exactly that she punched hard. You hear a lot that ‘She punches hard, she’s strong, she has knockout power!’ but when she landed, I moved my head because I was more scared of being hit than because the punch was strong.”
In the immediate future, Nunes says she plans to return to the bantamweight division to defend her title there. That will give the UFC time to produce a new challenger at 145, or perhaps let Cyborg rebuild her contender status. Or, it may just mean that by the time she’s ready to go back up in weight there won’t be a division to go back up to.