Amanda Nunes is expected to return from retirement to face former teammate Kayla Harrison for UFC gold, and an American Top Team prospect is curious to see how the two bantamweights will fare inside the octagon.<\/p>\n
Nunes left ATT when Harrison climbed to the top of the lightweight division under the PFL banner, admitting she didn\u2019t feel \u201csafe\u201d under the same roof in Florida. Nunes eventually ended her career in 2023 as a two-division UFC queen, and Harrison parted ways with PFL as two-time champion to go on and conquer the belt that once belonged to Nunes.<\/p>\n
With Nunes back in the sport for such a legacy fight, some wonder if that could end up being Harrison\u2019s final appearance in MMA. Former LFA bantamweight champion and UFC Rio newcomer Bia Mesquita, who trains with Harrison on a daily basis at American Top Team in Florida, doesn\u2019t think that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for her this fight with Amanda is gonna be one of like her biggest goals in her career, but I don\u2019t think she\u2019s done yet,\u201d Mesquita told MMA Fighting. \u201cKayla has such a big fire inside of her, she goes every day to train. That\u2019s very inspiring because she\u2019s already an Olympic champion, she won PFL title twice, and now she\u2019s the UFC champion, but she\u2019s still there every day chasing her biggest and best version every single day. And fighting Amanda is going to be one of her goals. But I don\u2019t think she\u2019s going to be done yet. I hear that she wants to fight at the White House. So for sure another fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than beating a Hall of Famer in Nunes, Mesquita hopes that Harrison eventually re-opens the featherweight division to chase another UFC belt \u2014 and clears the path for her at 135 pounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope [Harrison] can make it because it\u2019s just so good when we see women opening a lot of doors for other girls that are coming up, and I think she has that potential,\u201d Mesquita said. \u201cMaybe open again the 145 division, move up and leave the 135 for me [laughs]. And then we can both be champions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harrison won 19 of 20 MMA bouts since her debut in 2018, eight by submission, and tapped out Holly Holm and Julianna Pe\u00f1a to win two of her three UFC fights. Nunes, 23-5 as a pro, is a black belt in jiu-jitsu but scored the vast majority of her wins by knockout (13). Win or lose in her return from retirement, Nunes\u2019 place in MMA history is already secured.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Nunes] opened a lot of doors,\u201d Mesquita said. \u201cShe\u2019s the only woman that has two titles, 135 and 145. She made her history and nothing\u2019s gonna change. Doesn\u2019t matter what\u2019s gonna happen on this next fight. I\u2019m happy that she\u2019s gonna come back because fans miss watching her fight. But her history is made. Her name is there forever. And I\u2019m very glad that she opened all the doors that I\u2019m taking advantage right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UFC has yet to announce a date for the planned match between Harrison and Nunes.<\/p>\n
On the same night Mesquita makes her octagon debut, however, another teammate of hers is featured on the main event when Mateusz Gamrot takes on Charles Oliveira. The jiu-jitsu legend expects an \u201camazing fight\u201d despite the short notice aspect of it, with Gamrot replacing Rafael Fiziev on less than a month\u2019s notice.<\/p>\n
Mesquita is one of the greatest competitors in jiu-jitsu history and remains undefeated in MMA with a record of 5-0, including a bantamweight title win at LFA to lead to a deal with the UFC. Her debut goes down Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, facing Irina Alekseeva.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart is divided with a teammate and one of the biggest names of martial arts,\u201d Mesquita said. \u201cCharles, I\u2019m like a big fan of him, of everything he did in MMA, especially being a grappler, all those submissions that made us go crazy during his whole career.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Gamrot is also ready to go because his wrestling is on point and it\u2019s one of the best in the division. As a grappling fan, I\u2019m really excited with this fight. This matchup, I think was the best that could happen in this last minute because Charles has the submissions attempts that like can come like right away, but Gamrot has a really good wrestling style that avoids that submission game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amanda Nunes is expected to return from retirement to face former teammate Kayla Harrison for UFC gold, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-196086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}