John McCarthy recently agreed with Belal Muhammad and dismissed Amanda Nunes' claims of wanting to go five rounds with Julianna Pena.
'The Lioness' put on a dominant performance at UFC 277 to avenge her previous loss against Pena. However, Nunes claimed that she wanted to go the distance with 'The Venezuelan Vixen' rather than gunning for a finish.
Muhammad dismissed Nunes' claims as he stated on Instagram:
"She's getting too arrogant saying, 'I could've finished her in the first round if I wanted to, but I wanted to go five rounds so I could show her who's better,' blah, blah, blah. Get out of here with that. You couldn't finish her."
McCarthy supported Muhammad's claims by stating on the Weighing In podcast that had the fight gone two more rounds, Nunes still wouldn't have been able to finish Pena. According to McCarthy, the former champion is as tough a fighter as anybody. Here's what he told former Strikeforce champion and analyst Josh Thomson:
"If you could've finished her, you would have. To sit there and say, 'Oh! I wanted to go the five rounds, I could have finished her in the first round,' is bullsh*t. If you could've finished her, you would've finished her... you have got to give credit to the fact that you couldn't finish her [Pena] even when you were tagging her with big shots, doing damage, and she still hung in there, she was still tough to the end. And if the fight had gone seven rounds, you probably wouldn't have finished her."
Watch John McCarthy talk about Julianna Pena vs. Amanda Nunes 2:
Is Valentina Shevchenko next for Amanda Nunes?
Julianna Pena has already started campaigning for a trilogy fight against Amanda Nunes. The score between the duo is currently 1-1 and 'The Venezuelan Vixen' believes a rubber match is the way to decide who the better fighter is.
However, Nunes utterly dominated her in the rematch this past weekend and earned multiple 10-8 rounds on the scorecard.
After such a lopsided win, an immediate rematch with Pena seems unlikely.
Amanda's trilogy fight against Valentina Shevchenko has been teased for a while. They are currently the two best pound-for-pound women's fighters in the UFC and given their history, a third fight will set the MMA world ablaze.
Shevchenko has been pretty vocal about her desire to meet 'The Lioness' in the octagon once more. It'd be a treat to fight fans all around the world and may well decide the GOAT of women's MMA.