Nunes calls Rousey media blackout dramatic and weird

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey did so many media appearances that in 2015 she landed at No. 3 in Google’s top trending people. No. 4 was Donald Trump.

Media responsibility pressure was often cited as a contributing factor in the loss of Rousey’s belt to Holly Holm at UFC 193 on November 15, 2015. Rousey returns over a year later at UFC 207 to challenge new champion Amanda Nunes. This time she has self-imposed a media brown out.

“In April 2015, the sport made headlines when another of its stars, McGregor, refused to attend a news conference,” writes ESPN‘s Ramona Shelburne. “White responded by pulling him from the UFC 200 card. Rousey watched it unfold from afar. When she saw McGregor a month later, at a Bud Light commercial taping in Las Vegas, she pulled him aside and offered some advice. ‘Instead of trying to handle everything at once, while it’s coming at you, just trying to reach an agreement beforehand,’ she told him. Rousey did the same when she negotiated her terms for UFC 207. She would limit her publicity to a few high-profile interviews with people of her choosing, a day of filming at the gym in Glendale and a staredown with Nunes at UFC 205, a bout that McGregor would headline in New York in November.”

Rousey has stuck to the plan, severely limiting her media duties. Nunes is not impressed.

Yeah I think she’s been very weird about everything, said Nunes to Damon Martin for FOX Sports on Wednesday evening. This is MMA, people are going to talk good about you, people are going to talk bad about you. You have to be ready for it.

You guys [the media], you’re part of our lives, part of our careers. We have to talk and speak to the media because this is part of our job. She’s being so dramatic and weird about that. She knows this is normal.

I really don’t want to think she’s weak but she shows that she’s been avoiding all those things that made her who she is now. I think it’s a little bit weird.

I don’t think she’s weak in mind. I really think she’s prepared for the comeback. I expect the best Ronda but I don’t know what’s wrong with her.

In one of the very few pre-fight exchanges, Nunes predicted a first round KO, and Rousey quipped that was beacause the Brazilian gasses in the second round.

Honestly, always my opponents have something to talk about me,” said Nunes. “My last opponent Miesha Tate, she said she’s going to break me mentally. Now Ronda Rousey. If I finish these people in the first round it’s because I don’t need to go to the second.

Honestly she did this interview because she doesn’t have anything else to talk about me because she knows I’m the best. She knows I’m better than her. That’s why she made these excuses. I know I’ll be ready for five rounds but I don’t think this fights going to go that far, but if does, I’m going to be ready.

In an interview with TMZ, Nunes said Rousey’s media blackout extends even to unfollowing the champion.

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Amanda Nunes fights Ronda Rousey in the main event of UFC 207 on December 30, 2016 at T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada.