Nunes: UFC 215 co-main great, but punishment for UFC 213 withdrawal
Amanda Nunes: “No matter what happens, I will keep doing the same things that I do: training fights — whatever people’s opinions are.”
UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes weighed in successfully for UFC 213 and on fight day pulled out of the main event fight with Valentina Shevchenko, citing chronic Sinusitis.
UFC president Dana White described the withdrawal as, “90 percent mental and maybe 10 percent physical.” But he said he did not consider stripping her of the title.
We’ve never seen anything like this from [Nunes] before,” he said. “There’s no pattern of her refusing to fight somebody.” However, he also ruled out making the rematch a main event, and he didn’t.
Saturday’s UFC 215 will be headlined by Demetrious Johnson vs. Ray Borg, with Nunes vs. Bullet serving as co-main. During a recent media call, Nunes said she is happy to be in the co-main slot, but did attribute it to the controversial pulling out in July.
I feel they punished me for sure because I didn’t compete, said Nunes, as transcribed by Tristen Critchfield for Sherdog. At the end of the day I want to fight. I think the main event for this fight’s great. I’m a big fan of Demetrious and they made the right decision to make that the main event. I love to be the co-main event. The only thing I want is to step in that cage and get my work done.
She also said she had no regrets about pulling out the day of the fight.
I don’t really care what people think,” she said. “I train my whole life for this. I’m a fighter and I will keep training. No matter what happens, I will keep doing the same things that I do: training fights — whatever people’s opinions are.
This delay allowed me to recover and find out what is going on in all these things. When I go to another area, another climate, I always have these kind of issues. I was able to go to a specialist and they helped me. When I step in the cage I’m 100 percent. Every fighter wants to step in the cage 100 percent. I think I made the right decision, not fighting and getting ready for the next step.
