A recently announced title fight for the UFC’s return to Canada was met with at least a moderately raised eyebrow in the MMA community.
Dual women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion Amanda Nunes (22-5 MMA, 15-2 UFC) will defend her 135-pound belt in the UFC 289 main event against Julianna Pena (11-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) on June 10 in Vancouver.
Peña pulled off a stunning submission upset of Nunes to win the bantamweight title at UFC 169 in December 2021. It is regarded as one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. But this past July, Nunes put on a mostly dominant performance to take back the belt with a unanimous decision.
Because the pair is knotted at 1-1, the trilogy fight itself is not a surprise. But the timing of it even surprised Nunes – who said she thought she’d fight Irene Aldana next.
So what do we make of the announcement? Should Peña have needed another win to get a third fight with Nunes? Along with Aldana, what other options are out there for Nunes at 135?
This week’s “Spinning Back Clique” panel of “Gorgeous” George Garcia, Brian “Goze” Garcia and Danny Segura tackled the topic with host Mike Bohn. Check out their discussion in the video above, and don’t miss this week’s full episode below.
“Spinning Back Clique” is released each Monday LIVE on MMA Junkie’s YouTube channel. You can watch this week’s episode in the video above.
