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Amanda “The Lioness” Nunes is the reigning UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion—widely regarded by several fans and experts alike as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Nunes has come a long way since her days as a heavy-handed slugger on the regional MMA circuit in Brazil. While The Lioness has indeed retained her gift of heavy hands right to the elite level, one simply cannot argue that she has added several other wrinkles to her overall Mixed Martial Arts game.
From scoring several KO/TKO stoppages to suffering a few devastating defeats over the course of her storied career, Nunes has seen it all.
Nevertheless, what this high-level striker and underrated grappler has proven to be, is a true warrior who personifies “resilience”.
Today we take a look at some of the best Amanda Nunes MMA fights. Fasten your seatbelts folks, as we’re heading right into the Lioness’ den—
#5 Amanda Nunes vs. Julia Budd
Amanda Nunes faced MMA stalwart Julia Budd back in 2011—with the duo squaring up at Strikeforce Challengers: Woodley vs. Saffiedine.
Nunes scored perhaps one of the most impressive wins of her MMA career—knocking out Budd in 14 seconds. It was Nunes’ first fight in the United States of America—and proved to be one that served to announce the arrival of The Lioness to the international MMA scene.
The fight was highly-intriguing, so to speak, as Nunes opened up firing on all cylinders. She found her target early with a beautiful inside leg kick.
Regardless, rather than keep chopping at Budd’s lead leg, Nunes chose to follow up the leg kick with consecutive right hands.
Furthermore, Nunes then drew Budd towards her left hand—before tagging the latter with a huge left hook. The thunderous left hand knocked Budd down—following which, Nunes pounced on her downed foe with a ton of lightning fast hammerfists.
The fight was called off at 14 seconds, and the crowd in Nashville went wild in light of the ruthless display of unbridled aggression by The Lioness.
The fight was a great showing, however, was an example of how Nunes’ excessive aggression would eventually come back to bite her—something we’ll take a look at next…
#4 Amanda Nunes vs. Cat Zingano
Amanda Nunes’ uncontrolled aggression led her to getting gassed out in her TKO loss to Alexis Davis in 2011, as well as in her decision loss to Sarah D’Alelio in 2013.
Regardless, her aforementioned loss to Davis was sort of written off, since that was Nunes’ first fight at 135 pounds. Additionally, the D’Alelio decision was noted as yet another part of the learning process and nothing more.
However, by the time Nunes faced Cat Zingano at UFC 178 in 2014, The Lioness was viewed as one of the biggest threats to then-champion “Rowdy” Ronda Rousey. Nunes and Zingano were, at that point of time, considered to be the ones who could possibly dethrone Rousey—particularly due to their high-level Muay Thai skills.
Nunes stunned Zingano on the feet—courtesy her well-refined boxing skills—before landing brutal ground-and-pound on the latter in Round 1. Regardless, Nunes’ cardio issues coupled with her wild fighting style, caused her to gas out early in this matchup.
Zingano then rag-dolled Nunes in the clinch—landing several nasty elbows and knees. She then threw Nunes around with a variety of beautifully executed suplexes.
The fight being 1-1 heading into the third and final round, Zingano once again took Nunes down and stopped her with a brutal barrage of elbows and punches on the ground.
While Nunes may have lost that fight, it turned out to be a great learning point in her career—following which she worked tremendously hard on her cardio issues and tweaked her fighting style to that of a more measured kind of aggression. Either way, Nunes’ showdown with Zingano is regarded as one of the greatest Women’s MMA fights of all time.
#3 Amanda Nunes vs. Miesha Tate
Amanda Nunes challenged Miesha Tate for the latter’s UFC Women’s Bantamweight title at UFC 200 back in 2016.
Most experts noted, prior to the fight, that while Nunes is a good striker; Tate is likely to grind out a clear-cut decision over her Brazilian foe.
They were dead wrong…
Tate, to her credit, managed to score a takedown on Nunes—however, there was negligible positional control or any significant time on the mat, as Nunes popped up immediately.
After a few more failed attempts to get the fight to the mat, Tate had no choice but to strike on the feet with Nunes…And that is exactly what The Lioness wanted.
Nunes caught Tate with beautiful 1-2s and tagged her with left and right hooks in quick succession. A stunned Tate then fell after a brutal ground-and-pound attack by Nunes which was followed by a tight Rear-Naked Choke.
UFC 200 marked one of Nunes’ most dominant performances ever.
#2 Amanda Nunes vs. Ronda Rousey
Amanda Nunes defended her title against Ronda Rousey at UFC 207 in December of 2016.
Bear in mind, that Rousey was coming off her first MMA loss—a brutal KO stoppage at the hands of Holly Holm in 2015.
Regardless, Rousey had taken a long hiatus from MMA competition and worked tremendously hard on her strength and conditioning ahead of her UFC 207 fight with Nunes.
Nunes finished off Rousey in 48 seconds of the very first round—measuring Rousey with a few power jabs, and then tagging her with 1-2s.
In what was one of the most brutal standing TKO stoppages in MMA history, Nunes’ 1-2 and powerful straight punches had Rousey out on her feet—further cementing The Lioness’ legacy as one of the best fighters in WMMA history.
#1 Amanda Nunes vs. Valentina Shevchenko 2
Amanda Nunes faced one of the greatest Muay Thai fighters of all time—Valentina Shevchenko—at UFC 196 in 2016.
After a dominant showing with her grappling and top control in rounds 1 and 2, Nunes faded in the 3-round fight’s final stanza. Shevchenko had Nunes in big trouble in the final round—hurting her with several knees and punches.
Regardless, Nunes survived and was awarded the victory by way of Unanimous Decision.
The arch rivals faced off once again in 2017—this time around in a 5-round affair with the UFC Women’s Bantamweight title on the line. “Bullet” arguably edged out rounds 1, 2 and 4.
However, Nunes stole rounds 3 and 5—the latter with a beautiful takedown. One ought to note that although Nunes didn’t get off much offense after the takedown, 2 of the 3 judges awarded her the win on the scorecards.
The split-decision victory awarded to Nunes has resulted in countless debates in ensuing months, however, the fight was one of the greatest technical battles—a violent chess match—in MMA history.
