Miesha Tate doesn’t think Amanda Nunes will be able to bounce back in a potential rematch against Julianna Pena this year.
At UFC 269, Julianna Pena shocked the world by defeating Amanda Nunes to capture the UFC bantamweight title. Ever since then there’s been talk of what would happen if the pair ran it back, with “The Lioness” still being the most dangerous threat at 135 pounds.
Tate, who was in there against Nunes back at UFC 200, has given her thoughts on what would go down in Pena vs Nunes 2.
“She [Pena] just has a no quit, no give up mentality and now that the seed of doubt has been planted in Amanda’s mind, that’s probably where I see the biggest change going. That’s not gonna favour Amanda.”
“Once someone dethrones you, it’s such a big tumble and then you’ve got to try to fix things, and the mental shift that happens in all of that, I imagine it’s very challenging to try and get right back up there and fight the person who just figured out how to unlock Pandora’s Box. You know what I mean? How do you come up with something they haven’t seen, when you don’t have time to try and develop it and use it on someone else.”
An immediate rematch seems like the next logical step that the UFC is going to go in, but with bantamweight beginning to fill up with some new contenders, it’ll be interesting to see whether Nunes opts to take a step back from the title picture.
Do you agree with Miesha Tate? Will we see a different version of Amanda Nunes if she does get the immediate rematch against Julianna Pena? Let us know your thoughts on the state of the division and this rivalry down in the comments, BJPENN Nation!