Outside Source
After Amanda Nunes put on one last sensational performance by dominating Irene Aldana at UFC 289, she exited the octagon for good. And one of the first people she acknowledged with a kiss on the forehead was Jon Anik, who was on the headset to call her final fight.
“Well, it meant the world to me,” Anik told MMA Fighting. “She and I are especially close, we both live in South Florida. I was able to go to her new gym, The Lioness Studio, the week before the fight, I went to watch her train, and instead we ended up talking for two and a half hours, and she didn’t even break a sweat. I felt pretty embedded with her. But obviously that was a special moment for me.
“And you know, I don’t say this softly, but I almost feel as though I can retire a happy man because ultimately, what is my initiative here? I’m trying to humanize these athletes, and I’m charged with providing the soundtrack to their professional lives, something that their family and their friends can be proud of, especially in those big moments of which Amanda had many. So it’s almost affirmation or confirmation as to the job that we are doing – not just me but our entire live production team and our entire staff.
“I think her kissing me on the forehead is almost her thanking the staff at large. She sort of motioned me into the octagon, and I knew I couldn’t do that, so thankfully, we were able to share a moment. But ultimately, it’s about her.”
Nunes retired as bantamweight champion, a title she lost and then regained against Julianna Peña. “The Lioness” subsequently had her way with Aldana over the 25-minute bout, but the MMA community wasn’t sure if she would call it a career.
While there were rumblings, nothing seemed 100 percent certain in Anik’s mind.
“She was pretty deceptive during the last two weeks leading up to the fight as to her intentions,” Anik explained. “Even Roger Krahl told us on the Anik & Florian Podcast, he only found out Wednesday of fight week that she was definitely gonna retire when he overheard a conversation between her and Cesar Carneiro, her long time and first-time MMA coach there in South Florida. So, a whirlwind of a week, and I’m just really happy for Amanda to have gone out, you know, on the note note on which she wanted to go,
“Now she has it within her rights to mislead people, right? And certainly she wanted to keep the focus on this fight week and not have it be about her retirement. Even Tom Brady didn’t want all of this pomp and circumstance on his way out, and as such, he didn’t get retirement gifts on every stop because you didn’t know it was gonna be his final season. But as the fight week went on, it seemed like there were some rumblings that she was going to retire.”
“So the final locker room bump that I wrote in my hotel room the night before the fight, ‘All right, coming up next from Vancouver, our final act. And might it be the final act in the decorated career of Amanda Nunes?’ because at that point in time I did have an inkling. But I’ll tell you, had she lost to Irene Aldana, she’d probably still be fighting.”
The 35-year-old Nunes won 16 of 18 octagon appearances and became a two-division champion after knocking out Cris Cyborg at UFC 232 in December 2018 to capture the women’s featherweight title. She held at least one UFC title for just shy of six years,and won the 135-pound title for the first time when she stopped Miesha Tate at UFC 200 in July 2016. Other notable names on Nunes’ résumé include Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm and Valentina Shevchenko, whom she defeated on two separate occasions.
With MMA retirements, more often than not the door is never fully closed and locked. While Anik will never put a zero percent number on anything when it comes to this crazy sport, he feels with Nunes that it’s pretty darn close.
“She walked away at the perfect time and it’s the greatest capstone, at least right now, in UFC history,” he said.
“I would say 1 percent chance [she fights again], and that 1 percent would be if some 135-pounder that maybe is not even on the roster right now were to emerge over the next two years into this other worldly great bantamweight, and all of a sudden, Amanda Nunes, the ultimate competitor wanted to sort of scratch that itch and come back. I think Nina Nunes, who right now is carrying their second child of probably four that they’re gonna have, I think she’s more likely to come back as a flyweight, and I think she can be one of the best flyweights in the world.
“People do not realize what a force Nina Nunes is in terms of being the general manager for Team Nunes, but also just as a fighter in her own right, a very naturally gifted fighter and athlete herself. So I think it’s more likely that Nina comes back now, maybe Nina would put a quick end to that conversation. But I would say one percent chance Amanda Nunes comes back. I just think the risk would far outweigh the financial or competitive reward. The division is going to move on, and there’s a lot of names, and there’s many directions we can go.”
This article first appeared at MMA Fighting – All Posts
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