Amanda Nunes restored her status as a dual-weight UFC champion on Saturday night, dominating Julianna Pena to regain the women’s bantamweight title in the main event of UFC 277.
Pena submitted Nunes in December to win the belt from the Brazilian, who also holds the UFC women’s featherweight title, in what is seen as one of the biggest upsets in the history of mixed martial arts. Nunes, however, put things right as far as she was concerned on Saturday, dominating a brave, resilient Pena to secure a unanimous-decision victory (50-45, 50-44, 50-43) over the American and recapture the bantamweight gold.
Nunes, fighting out of a southpaw stance at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, dropped 32-year-old Pena to a knee twice in the first round, before scoring three knockdowns in Round 2. The second of those three was the most significant, Nunes clipping Pena with a powerful lead right hook from southpaw and sending her tumbling to the canvas. The remainder of the five-round fight saw Nunes, 34, take down Pena with ease and land heavy strikes from above – particularly slicing elbows that opened a severe cut along Pena’s hairline – while the American tried to throw up submissions in response.
Re-live updates and see all results from UFC 277, below.
