Amanda Nunes’ girlfriend Nina Ansaroff spoke recently with MMAjunkie and discussed the harsh fan reaction when Nunes pulled out of the first scheduled rematch with Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 213. Nunes was suffering from chronic sinusitis and there was a dispute over whether she had medical clearance to fight or not.

Ansaroff said that although her girlfriend didn’t see the comments, she let her know enough to inspire hard training to shut the naysayers up.

There were a lot of negative comments after her fight, said Ansaroff, as transcribed bySteven Marrocco and Mike Bohn. She didn’t really look into them – I did. I never mentioned them to her, but in passing, I would make sure we trained a little extra hard, just to shut everyone up.

People don’t respect the sport as much as they should. The fans are very iffy in this sport, which is just unfortunate.

I feel like in other sports, you should just stick by your athletes. Sometimes they’re sick, sometimes they don’t perform well, sometimes they’re the best in the world. But it’s a hard sport to stay doing it for the fans, because they’re so negative sometimes.

Of course, you get those passionate ones that are there for you – that keeps you going. That makes it more enjoyable. But I just feel like the fans need to lay off a little, or stop being such keyboard warriors and pretending you’re this person behind the screen. Support the sport.

UFC 215: Nunes vs. Shevchenko 2 will be tonight, September 9, 2017 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.