VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Amanda Nunes is done for good.
The UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion retired on Saturday night following her latest title defense, and she’s not leaving a door open for a return in the future – not even the slightest bit.
Nunes (23-5 MMA, 16-2 UFC), who defeated Mexico’s Irene Aldana in the main event of UFC 289, says the ride is over.
“Yeah, I’m gone,” Nunes told reporters at the UFC 289 post-fight press conference. “I’m good. I did everything and all is taken care of in my life.
“Thank you, UFC. They took care of me, and they’ll always take care of me, so I’m always going to be around. If I don’t do anything with them, I’ll still go up and down just to be around because I love this sport so much, and I did everything to be the best at it. And I proved it tonight. I retired with my two belts.”
Nunes didn’t make a hasty decision in walking away from the sport. She knew well before Saturday night that she was going to retire.
“When I signed the contract for this fight,” Nunes said when asked when she made the decision to call it a career. “I tried to hide it from you guys the whole week, but you guys were always on top of it. I just didn’t want to focus on that, I wanted to focus on my fight because I didn’t want to talk about the retirement all the time, and I still talked about it. Imagine if I would’ve said I was going to retire, it would’ve been all about that. So yeah, I knew the whole time.”
As far as the future of both divisions, UFC president Dana White said the women’s featherweight will likely be dismantled – given the lack of fighters in the weight class. The women’s bantamweight division is going strong, however, and will have a championship fight for the vacant title.
Nunes is excited to see how things shake out without her presence and thinks her rival Aldana (14-7 MMA, 7-5 UFC) has a good chance at being the champion.
“The division has to move on,” Nunes said. “I think Aldana is going to be a good one in the future. I think she’s going to come back strong and she might get the belt. We’ll see, it’s going to be good to see. It’s going to be good for me to see the division play out. I’m very excited for the division.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 289.
