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How long will we see Amanda Nunes continue to fight? The UFC double champ has repeatedly spoken about possibly hanging up the gloves to focus on her family as “there’s nothing else to be done” in MMA after achieving great heights. This has been a trend for a while now, with Nunes even discussing retirement as far back as 2017.
It’s 2023 and that obviously hasn’t happened yet, with Nunes set to defend her bantamweight belt against Irene Aldana this weekend at UFC 289. Interestingly enough, UFC light heavyweight contender Anthony Smith says he has a “very weird sentiment” about wanting to see Nunes retire for a while now.
Anthony Smith is looking forward to Amanda Nunes’ retirement
“Is it weird that, at times, I look forward to Amanda Nunes’ retirement?” Smith told MMA Fighting. “It’s a very weird sentiment I have. Sometimes when I see her in these fight weeks, in these interviews, and she’s dragged her whole family there, and then she gets in and she fights — sometimes I almost feel bad for her.”
Smith made it clear that the sentiment on Nunes isn’t at all a negative one.
“Like, just go enjoy your life, and just go have fun. Like, stop doing all this s–t. Because a lot of times she doesn’t seem to always enjoy it that much,” Smith said.
“I don’t know, I just feel like she’s in a position where she can just, there’s so much — she has a whole lifetime ahead of her,” Smith continued. “And she’s done so much and, again, like, what else does she have to prove? At all? I just almost look forward to her to be able to just go off and just do something else great. I know that sounds weird, [but] I mean that in a really positive way. I mean that in a really positive way.
“I just want her to be happy.”
Is Amanda Nunes still motivated to fight?
One of the talking points about Amanda Nunes the last couple of years, has been her motivation – or lack of – after achieving so much already. Dana White even went on record to say that Nunes isn’t the same “hungry savage” anymore, and Smith touched on the same topic when discussing the upcoming title defense.
“I’m not super confident in it, but I think if the best Amanda Nunes shows up, I think she gets the job done,” Smith said about Nunes’ upcoming bout with Aldana. “The problem is her motivation has been in question at times. She’s got this a little bit of a different training setup, where she’s kind of off on her own doing her own thing. We’ve seen that be really successful with some people, and really, really tragic in others.”
Nunes recently turned 35-years-old, and has been fighting professionally since 2008. In that decorated 15 year career, Nunes has compiled a 22-5 MMA record, with 10 of those wins coming in UFC title fights.
Apart from that one upset loss to Julianna Peña that she immediately avenged, “The Lioness” has been a dominant force in two divisions since she won her first title seven years ago.
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