UFC double-champion Amanda Nunes has cleaned out what’s left of the women’s featherweight division. With no challengers for the immediate future, “The Lioness” is now back to defending her bantamweight title.
After Nunes disposed of Megan Anderson at UFC 259 in March, UFC president Dana White says he’s keeping the women’s 145-pound division open “as long as the champ-champ wants to defend it.
But in a recent conversation with Combate, Nunes revealed that White may finally kill off the weight class. This is when she decided to step in.
“Dana wants to end this division, but I said that, as long as I’m a champion, I want it open,” she said.
Nunes recognizes the lack of talent at featherweight and the challenge of finding suitable challengers.
“I think what gets in the way of featherweight is talent. I find it difficult to find talented girls in this category,” Nunes said. “I may be wrong, but we can see the girls who fought Cris (Cyborg) needed a little more. It’s not that they’re really bad athletes, but they needed a job. It is difficult to find these girls.”
For now, Nunes’ next task is to defend her bantamweight title for the sixth time against Juliana Peña at UFC 265 in August. As for the featherweight division, the 32-year-old Brazilian says she’s willing to wait for her next challenger.
“I will wait, they will surely find someone,” she said. “They did that with Cris, brought in girls from God knows where to fight her. And the bantamweights themselves will want to go up in weight to make themselves more comfortable. That’s better for me.
“Whether you have a division or not, it doesn’t matter to me.”