Amanda Nunes is the UFC women's bantamweight champion.
You can be forgiven if you didn't know that. None of the pre-fight promotion for UFC 207 on December 30 bothered to give Nunes the time of day. Ronda Rousey's return was the only narrative the UFC was interested in selling before the bout, and it was obvious which of the two fighters the UFC would have preferred to emerge on top.
Rousey refused to do any media in the lead-up to the fight, skipping pre-fight press conferences and public appearances. That was her prerogative, but it robbed Nunes of the chance to make her own name on the biggest stage of her career.
In the aftermath of UFC 207, the emphasis on Rousey—what happened in her year away, will she fight again, what's wrong with her coach, was she ever even that good?—have left Nunes the forgotten fighter once again.
And just like that ... @Amanda_Leoa puts Rousey away!!! #UFC207 pic.twitter.com/TkLu9KYcvI
— UFC (@ufc) December 31, 2016
It took Nunes just 48 seconds to smash Rousey into oblivion. Nunes pummeled Rousey with punch after punch after punch, snapping her head back and knocking whatever fight might still have been left in the former champion into the abyss.
As referee Herb Dean mercifully stepped in to save Rousey from further punishment, Nunes swaggered through the Octagon, shushing first the crowd and then Rousey's trainer, Edmond Tarverdyan. "She had her time. She did a lot for the sport. Thank Ronda Rousey, but I'm the champion, and I'm here to stay," she said in her post-fight interview.
"[Before the fight] I know I'm going to beat the s--t out of Ronda Rousey," she continued. "I proved tonight, I'm the best on the planet. Come on, guys, you gonna keep saying bulls--t about Ronda Rousey? Now she's gonna retire and go do movies...Forget about Ronda Rousey."
She's right. Nunes is the present and perhaps the future of the division as well.
Nunes isn't Conor McGregor on the microphone, but she's hardly a shrinking violet, and nobody has done a better job of stating her case than Nunes herself. More importantly, she's now riding a five-fight winning streak, with four of those wins inside the first round. In this case, the results speak for themselves.
Rousey and her friend Shayna Baszler fell by knockout, and Nunes felled both Miesha Tate and Sara McMann with punches before jumping on submissions. Only elite striker Valentina Shevchenko, who lost by decision, made it to the final bell.
These weren't exactly the dregs of the division. Rousey and Tate both held the title, and McMann challenged for one, while Shevchenko will likely get the next shot if she can get past Julianna Pena later in January.
Knockout artists haven't been common in women's MMA—only the incomparable Cris Cyborg has built her reputation on brutal power—but Nunes is making a name for herself as a puncher with the pop to stop any opponent. Her killer instinct is off the charts, and if she can't finish with strikes, she's happy to jump on a submission to end the fight.
Nunes' "Lioness" nickname is fitting: When she smells blood, nothing stops her from making the kill.
When that killer instinct is married to ridiculous speed, explosiveness, punching power and all-around athleticism, the result is a championship fighter.
It would be a mistake to look at Nunes' raw physicality and assume that's the basis of her success, though. She's an increasingly skilled and polished fighter in every phase, a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and a tricky, crafty striker with strong wrestling chops. She trains at American Top Team with some of the best fighters and coaches on the face of the planet.
It was these skills that led her to victory against Rousey at UFC 207.
The most notable thing about Nunes' approach on the feet, the foundation of her success in her recent fights, is her command of footwork and distance. Tate mentioned during the pre-fight show at UFC 207 that the most surprising thing about Nunes had been her ability to land strikes from extreme range, where Tate thought she was safe from harm.
Not only can Nunes land from long range, but she also knows how to maintain and use that distance to her benefit. Everything she threw against Rousey was a long, straight punch, and immediately after throwing, Nunes stepped back and to the side to create a new angle. This prevented Rousey from getting inside and clinching effectively.
More than her skill in the clinch, which is considerable, or even her physicality, this is what made it so difficult for Rousey to get ahold of Nunes. Every time Rousey got her hands on the champion, Nunes was either too far away or too far to the side for Rousey to bring her hips in close or establish a strong grip. With Rousey just a bit too far away, Nunes could easily push off, break the clinch, step back and start throwing again.
This is basic footwork, nothing fancy or flashy, but it's the foundation of any elite striking game, and Nunes executes it at an elite level. She sidesteps, pivots, turns, backsteps and does it all while launching heavy straight punches that keep her opponent too far outside to respond.
And when those punches land, oh my.
Holly Holm hit Rousey hard enough to madden her and put her off her game plan before finishing with the head kick; Nunes knocked her block off in 48 seconds. Rousey took 11 minutes to submit Tate in their second meeting; Nunes blasted her and choked her out in 196 seconds.
Rousey was a little quicker to finish McMann, but where Rousey dropped with a body shot, Nunes knocked her down, jumped on her with a ferocious barrage of ground strikes and then choked her. Shevchenko survived to see a decision, and won the third round by a wide margin, but Nunes turned her face into a bloody, smashed mess first.
There's no need to debate Rousey's legacy in full, but it's meaningful that part of what made her so marketable and transcendent was the vicious way she finished her opponents, whether with strikes or armbars. She was a mean, nasty fighter who seemed to revel in the way she brutalized her opponents. That was an inherent part of her appeal; she was looking for finishes, not post-fight handshakes.
In that regard, Nunes is a worthy successor to the former champion and superstar. She's a skilled fighter, but one with the physicality and killer instinct to finish anyone she faces in devastating fashion. Brutal, beautiful violence is her calling card, and it's time to appreciate Nunes for the champion she has become.
