Amanda Nunes entered the octagon in June to face off with Kayla Harrison, setting up a megafight for her return from retirement in 2026 following Harrison\u2019s title-winning submission at UFC 316. Not only that, \u201cThe Lioness\u201d invited Larissa Pacheco \u2014 the only woman to beat Harrison in MMA \u2014 to be part of her next training camp.<\/p>\n
The UFC has yet to announce a date for the planned championship collision, but Pacheco said Nunes is ready to enter the cage as soon as next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can say is that if the UFC wants to book this fight next week or next month for Amanda, she\u2019s ready,\u201d Pacheco told MMA Fighting. \u201cShe\u2019s ready. In terms of adjustments, everything, there\u2019s nothing more to say. I\u2019m not going to talk strategy because I can\u2019t, but she\u2019s ready, man. What I\u2019ve felt from her\u2026 I can say this: I\u2019ve felt Kayla\u2019s energy before, and now I\u2019ve felt Amanda\u2019s. She\u2019s ready. That fight is hers, without a doubt. She\u2019s walking out with the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pacheco fought Harrison three times inside the PFL cage. The first two bouts took place in 2019, with Harrison winning both via decision to end that year as PFL champion and 7-0 in the sport. They would meet for a third time in November 2022, and Pacheco walked away with the decision victory \u2014 and the PFL belt.<\/p>\n
Nunes and Harrison were part of the same team in the past, training together occasionally at American Top Team in Florida, and Pacheco believes she adds important knowledge to Nunes\u2019 camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve felt Kayla inside the cage,\u201d Pacheco said. \u201cAmanda has trained with Kayla at the gym, but I\u2019ve been in that place where the pressure is highest, which is inside the octagon. So\u2026 man, it\u2019s going to be insane. It\u2019s going to be incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nunes retired from MMA after beating Irene Aldana in June 2023, walking away as two-division UFC queen. Harrison made her promotional debut almost a year later, going 3-0 against Holly Holm, Ketlen Vieira, and Julianna Pe\u00f1a to be crowned bantamweight champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe never really lost that throne. Her hunger is to win,\u201d Pacheco said of Nunes. \u201cShe didn\u2019t have a real challenge left, one that matched her level. She beat everyone. When she retired, it was at a time when she didn\u2019t have a true challenge anymore. It felt like, \u2018I\u2019m doing this just for the money.\u2019 At least that\u2019s how I see it; it\u2019s not something she told me directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut since there\u2019s something personal between them, it adds a different flavor, right? And now Kayla is the champion of the promotion. She said in several interviews that she wanted to be UFC champion, that she wanted to fight Amanda, that she wanted to get there, and now she\u2019s there. Didn\u2019t she want this to happen so badly? Didn\u2019t she ask for it so much? This is the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a better time for Amanda to come back than now, than this,\u201d she continued. \u201cAnd to do it in this way, showing not only who she is \u2014 that she doesn\u2019t have to prove anything to anyone \u2014, but doing it against someone who truly is a challenge worthy of her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amanda Nunes entered the octagon in June to face off with Kayla Harrison, setting up a megafight for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315229,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-315228","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","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\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315228\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}