The championship carousel in the women’s bantamweight division continues to spin.
Amanda Nunes stunned Miesha Tate Saturday at UFC 200, pounding her to a bloody mess before scoring a first-round rear naked choke victory to take the women’s 135-pound crown.
Nunes came into the bout as a 2-to-1 underdog, according to Odds Shark and her victory only made an already wide-open title picture even more chaotic in the division Ronda Rousey once ruled with an iron fist.
It was considered a landmark achievement to see two women headlining the UFC’s gala bicentennial event. Nunes’ win added a couple additional layers of history. She becomes the first Brazilian woman to win UFC gold as well as the fight company’s first openly gay champion.
It also continued the unpredictability that has typified action in the women’s bantamweight division for the last eight months.
Tate had only been champion for four months, after defeating Holly Holm at UFC 196. At that time, Holm was also making her first defense of the crown since taking it from Ronda Rousey at UFC 193.
Nunes’ becoming champion essentially casts the future as a four-woman race for the division’s No. 1 ranking. At this point, it seems as though matchmakers could throw any combination of Nunes, Tate, Holm and Rousey in the cage and come away with marketable and competitive fights.
Add the emergence of Cris “Cyborg” Justino to the mix and it’s plain to see that the UFC’s women’s ranks are deeper and more flush with talent than ever before.
It’s also impossible to predict what might happen next.
The immediate future likely continues to hinge on Rousey, who has been MIA since suffering an aura-shattering knockout by Holm in November 2015. We still don’t know when the former champion—who is still among the UFC’s biggest stars—might return.
When she does, you can bet she’ll still be able to write her own ticket.
Had Tate emerged victorious, it was expected to set up a third meeting with Rousey. The night that Tate scored her come-from-behind win over Holm, UFC President Dana White quipped at the postfight press conference that Rousey had already texted him that it was “time to get back to work.”
When the UFC shuffled this fight card last week and installed Tate vs. Nunes as Saturday’s main event it was widely assumed Rousey would be on hand. Perhaps an in-cage showdown to set up a future bout would be in the offing.
Alas, on this night Rousey was nowhere to be seen, and any planned confrontation with Tate was scuttled by Nunes' win.
The 28-year-old Brazilian is known to be most dangerous early in fights, and on this night she lived up to that billing. Nunes came out of her corner aggressively, landing some stiff punches on Tate in the first minute.
As the opening round reached the midway point, Nunes stunned Tate with a series of right hands that eventually crumpled the American fighter against the fence. As blood streamed out of Tate’s face, Nunes took her back on the ground and locked up a choke that forced a fairly expeditious tap.
“She’s a very fast starter,” an emotional Tate told UFC color commentator Joe Rogan inside the cage when it was over. “Very dangerous in the first round and she caught me fair and square.”
Where we go from here is anybody's best guess.
Holm is scheduled to fight Valentina Shevchenko on July 23. Rousey is still out, and Tate's first round loss doesn't exactly make her an easy choice for an immediate rematch.
If Holm beats Schevchenko she likely has the inside track to be Nunes' next opponent.
If not? Perhaps another upstart might come along and further throw a wrench in everybody's best laid plans for women's bantamweight.
