Nunes taking time off for surgery, plans to return in 2018
Amanda Nunes: “I can’t hear this girl anymore. The doctors suggested you have to do this surgery, you can’t fight like that.”
\.UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes was scheduled to fight Valentina Shevchenko at UFC 213 but pulled out the day of the fight with chronic Sinusitis. The fight was rescheduled to UFC 215 Saturday night, and The Lioness won a controversial Split Decision. At the post-fight press conference, she said she was going to have surgery to correct the condition, and wouldn’t return until 2018.
I’m still very bad,” she said, as transcribed by Damon Martin for MMA Weekly. “I’m still very congested but I had to push this fight. I can’t hear this girl anymore. The doctors suggested you have to do this surgery, you can’t fight like that.”
I wanted to shut this girl up. [The doctor] tried to help me do everything to get in there, he got me almost 100-percent. The thing happens with me when I travel, the altitude get everything back and I have to do the surgery. Now the first thing when I’m back home, I’m going to do it for sure.
Nunes was asked if she would fight again in 2017. Given the surgery and helping prepare her girlfriend Nina Ansaroff to fight Angela Hill at UFC Fight Nght 120 on November 11, it doesn’t see likely.
Probably not, responded Nunes. I think I’m going to take some time off cause this is breathing, I have to take care of that. Sometimes I’m not able to sleep at night. I have to take care of this moving forward. I think I’m going to take a break and then next year I will come back.
When she does return, there is no obvious #1 contender, but Raquel Pennington, who is recovering from shoulder surgery, is a possibility.
