UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes is preparing to defend her title in a rematch against Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 213.
Nunes has spoken before about challenging for the UFC Women’s Featherweight Title, but if it comes against Cyborg, the path towards the gold may take a detour.
“I’m interested in fighting the girl who has the belt now, de Randamie,” Nunes said at a UFC 213 media lunch in. “Because I’d rather beat her. If UFC wanted to give me the opportunity to go up now, yes I would have taken it. Later is another thing. I want to see Cyborg with this belt. I’m not interested in fighting her. I’m not interested in fighting her. I’m interested in fighting the girl who has the belt now. After my next fight, we’ll see what happened.”
The current women’s featherweight champion is Germaine De Randamie, who defeated Holly Holm at UFC 208 to win the gold.
A huge factor that led to Nunes not wanting to fight Cyborg at the moment is that it would cause a lot of changes to how she currently trains for fights.
“I’d have to do a lot of things to fight Cyborg. Cyborg is way heavier, way bigger than me. I’d have to change all my training style to fight Cyborg. This is another thing I’d have to go over with my coaches,” says Nunes.
UFC 213 takes place on Saturday, July 8 from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada with Cody Garbrandt and TJ Dillashaw headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast to follow.