When ‘The Lioness’ is ready to make a kill, you know she’s going straight for the throat.

And, on Saturday night at UFC 289, that’s what she did. UFC Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes put on a masterclass against challenger Irene Aldana. Everywhere the fight went, Nunes dominated with punches, kicks, and well-executed takedowns. It was as flawless a performance as one could hope to have in high level MMA.

And then, just like that, one of the most impressive careers in UFC history came to its conclusion as Nunes laid down both her bantamweight and UFC Featherweight Championships and announced her retirement.

I assume Anthony Smith is sweating a little less now about saying he was looking forward to her retirement.

Also, way to take away from Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva’s nth retirement announcement. What are the odds two such highly regarded cage warriors would choose to call it quits on the same night?

Then again, Bigfoot should have stopped fighting 8 knockouts ago.

Amanda Nunes the GWOAT?

So now that Amanda Nunes is officially done, the discussions can begin to determine how she stacks up to the all-time greats. How far up in the pantheon of UFC gods should she be placed?

The consensus seems to be unanimous: Amanda Nunes is the Greatest of All Time…

…among women.

Yes, that’s how most are phrasing it and, yes, you know where I’m going with this.

Call me a woke social justice snowflake who eats babies all you want, but why is Amanda only being compared to other female fighters when her resume, especially her championship runs, should be enough to distinguish her as one of, if not the, greatest fighter of all time, man or woman?

Oh and, if you don’t like the direction this is going in, just be glad I don’t point out how the UFC fabulously failed at promoting one of their proudest gay athletes during Pride Month. I guess Dana doesn’t want to piss off the Power Slap crowd.

Amanda Nunes is the GOAT and you know it

Honestly, it amazes me how much praise Dana White gave her on Saturday considering how long it took for her to get recognition to begin with.

She main evented UFC 200, choking out Miesha Tate to start her first championship reign, but she only got that opportunity because Conor McGregor felt like playing hardball and Jon Jones picked the wrong day to not hide from USADA.

After that, Amanda Nunes defended her championship against Ronda Rousey, who, of course, was the focus of all the promotional hype. It made for quite the awkward build since Ronda made all of one media appearance before getting crushed by Nunes in the main event of UFC 207.

It wasn’t until Amanda’s Champion vs. Champion clash against Cris Cyborg at UFC 232, which saw the UFC Featherweight Champion get her clock cleaned inside of a minute, that the now 2-division champion was treated like the legend she is. It’s to the point that Dana allowed Amanda to keep and defend the 145 lbs title despite making no serious efforts to ever build a division.

That’s what makes what Amanda accomplished so remarkable: not only was she a two division champion, she beat every champion either of those divisions ever had.

We’re talking Rousey, Holly Holm, Tate, Julianna Peña, Germaine de Randamie, and Cyborg. Nunes beat them all.

Hell, the Peña win made her the lineal UFC Flyweight Champion as well (not to mention she has two wins over longtime 125 champ Valentina Shevchenko).

That’s an incredible resume. Compare that to any male fighter and it’s hard to top.

P4P rankings just don’t get it

Every media source that maintains MMA rankings does a Pound-for-Pound (or Pound-4-Pound if you’re cool like me) list and every one of those sites, from MMAFighting to MMAJunkie to CBS to ESPN to FightMatrix, Tapology, and the UFC’s own rankings, segregate men and women into separate lists.

For pretty much all of those lists, as of right now…

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Evan Zivin

Evan Zivin is a writer, having joined Bloody Elbow in 2023. He's been providing his unique takes on the sport of MMA since 2013, previously working as a featured columnist for 411Mania. Evan has followed MMA and professional wrestling for most of his life. His joy is in finding the stories and characters within all combat sports and presenting them in a serious yet light-hearted way.

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