Amanda Nunes knew early on in Kayla Harrison‘s rise to MMA prominence that a showdown between them out be inevitable.

What started as a willing training relationship on Nunes’ (23-5 MMA, 16-2 UFC) end inside the walls of American Top Team in Florida has turned into a championship showdown with Harrison (19-1 MMA, 3-0 UFC) in the UFC 324 co-headliner on Jan. 24 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Paramount+).

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Nunes departed ATT to start her own gym after a longstanding relationship. Harrison was still in PFL at the time, but talk of a UFC move grew more momentum, and eventually it happened. Before she arrived, though, Nunes retired from MMA competition in June 2023, citing a desire to focus on family.

Although the Brazilian always somewhat left the door open for a return, it wasn’t until Harrison was on the cusp of capturing the UFC women’s bantamweight title that she knew for sure.

“When she got there, every time I went to the gym training, she was there or I was there or all these things, but never was it anything,” Nunes told UFC on Paramount+. “Never was awkward to be together the time in training. When she started really talking about me, calling me out but at the same time was in the gym and trying to be my training partner, I started to get a little bit more far away from her. This is the challenge I like, but you’re here not to me, and that’s not how I like to do things. If you’re calling me out and fight me, you’re not supposed to be training with my same coach on the same mat. If I’m going to face you, you’re going to be out of here. At that time she wasn’t even in the UFC yet, but I knew it was possible. I knew right away when she started calling me out, I knew.

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“Everything was so crazy. I retired and had a second baby. All these things. I had so much going on and I decided to retire and she wasn’t even in the UFC yet. One year passed by, and I was kind of looking at (my wife) Nina around the house like, ‘Nina, I cannot stay away. I can’t. I tried so hard for one year.’ When those thoughts started to be more strong, Kayla signed with the UFC. It was like, ‘This is just meant to be.’ So everything came together.”

With the stars perfectly aligned for a comeback, Nunes is ready to show that she is still the dominant force that became an all-time great and a defending two-division UFC champion.

Nunes, 37, wants to show that ATT sided with the wrong fighter in Harrison, 35,, and bring life back to a division that has been craving for more elite threats.

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“Nobody is going to do anything with my division, so I’ve got to go in there and make this great again,” Nunes said. “They are all against me, so I look at them as my opponents, too. I like the challenge that this brings to me.”

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Amanda Nunes: UFC 324 return vs. Kayla Harrison ‘meant to be’