After her blistering knockout defeat at Cris Cyborg at UFC 232, Amanda Nunes is now the UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion. Dan Lambert, the founder of American Top Team where Nunes trains, believes the new champ-champ will actively defend both titles.
“I know in some of the deeper divisions they have, it’s impossible to be a champ-champ,” Lambert told MMAjunkie Radio. “How’s [Daniel Cormier] going to defend it against the best in the world at heavyweight and the best in the world at light heavyweight at the same time? It’s kind of impossible. But there’s not quite as many – I mean, obviously, the featherweight division, they don’t even have rankings out there. How many people do they even have there? So it may be possible for her to keep both.”
“The divisions aren’t quite as deep,” he added. “It’s not necessarily that as important for a champion to defend their title ‘X’ number of times in a year in those two divisions, I think. I don’t see why she can’t keep them.”
Lambert continued, explaining that Amanda Nunes can comfortably float between the 135-pound bantamweight division and the 145-pound featherweight division.
“She’s really comfortable at 135,” he said of the two-division titleholder. “She’s never had problems making the weight, absent one time where she was sick. She felt ill. It wasn’t a weight-related issue. Some people thought it was. And obviously making ’45 is a piece of cake for her.”
Now that Amanda Nunes owns two UFC belts, Lambert is hoping the promotion will really get behind her and promote her.
“The pop that I heard when she was running around that ring with those two belts on her shoulders like she stole them off Conor, it rocked the place,” he said. “I’d really like to see it. I think the UFC is going to try to get behind her. I think she’s getting better every fight she has. I think she’s going to be a dominant champion in both divisions, and people like dominance. People like dominating fighters, so I’d love to see it.”
This article first appeared on BJPENN.COM on 1/3/2019.