Jeff Smith 
@adminThe greatest women’s fighter of all time is set to defend her bantamweight belt against Julianna Peña at the upcoming UFC 265 on August 7. The location for the event has yet to be determined and presently this is the only fight on the card, but it is a good one to get it started.
Nunes has not fought in this weight division for over a year (December 2019) in which she dispatched Germaine de Randamie in a unanimous decision. She has not been idle in that time, she has had two successful title defenses of the other championship belt she holds in the featherweight division.
The “Lioness” has not lost a fight in the UFC since September 2014, in which she suffered a TKO at 1:21 into the third round. Since that time she has gone on to an extremely impressive 12 fight winning streak, including 9 straight title wins over some of the biggest names the sport has seen.
While Peña is only 2-2 in her last four, she does sport a nice winning record of 6-2 in the UFC (16-6 overall). Those two losses were to flyweight champion Valentina Schevchenko and #1 ranked bantamweight Germaine de Randamie, both by submission.
Peña has been calling out Nunes for quite some time now, after her last win over Sara McMann at the post fight press conference. Most recently she took to Twitter after Nunes’ win over Megan Anderson. Peña feels that the duo champ has been ducking her, in a recent interview with “MMA JUnkie” she stated:
“I’ve been fighting in this UFC division just as long as she has. … I feel like stylistically, I’m the worst possible matchup for her. I’m her kryptonite. I do believe that she knows that because every time I fight, she always says, ‘One more, and you’ve got to fight one more, and you’ve got to fight one more.’ It’s like, you didn’t make Felicia Spencer fight one more. You didn’t make Megan Anderson fight one more. You didn’t make Holly fight one more, but for some reason, I’ve got to fight one more.”
Peña was originally to fight Holly Holm before Holm pulled out. Which of course led to another round of calling out Nunes. Well, she doesn’t have to fight one more now.
Although Peña feels her fighting will give Nunes trouble, the odds-makers have a totally different opinion. The opening line on the fight sits with Nunes as the over-the-top favorite at -1000. Peña comes in as a severe underdog at +500. The odds are sure to move, but if you love a big underdog and agree with Peña’s opinion of herself, you could make a lot on this one.
Peña will now have to “put her money where her mouth is”. She is taking on not only the greatest female MMA fighter the world has seen but the fifth-ranked pound-for-pound fighter of all time.
