she always felt the collision was inevitable<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is the challenge I like,\u201d Nunes continued. \u201cBut if you\u2019re calling me out, you\u2019re not supposed to be training on the same mat with the same coach. If I\u2019m going to face you, you can\u2019t be here anymore. Even before she was in the UFC, I knew it was coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many MMA retirements, Nunes\u2019 time away proved temporary. Although she genuinely tried to step back after hanging up the gloves, the competitive fire never fully went out.<\/p>\n
\u201dEverything was so crazy. I retired and had a second baby. All these things,\u201d Nunes said. \u201cI had so much going on, and I decided to retire, and she wasn\u2019t even in the UFC yet. One year passed by, and I was kind of looking at Nina [Nunes] around the house like, \u2018Nina, I cannot stay away. I can\u2019t. I tried so hard for one year.\u2019 When those thoughts started to be more strong, Kayla signed with the UFC.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like, \u2018This is just meant to be.\u2019 So everything came together,\u201d Nunes concluded. \u201cNobody is going to do anything with my division, so I\u2019ve got to go in there and make this great again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The storyline couldn\u2019t be cleaner: former teammates turned rivals, unresolved tension, and two of the most accomplished athletes in combat sports history \u2014 Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and Nunes, widely regarded as the women\u2019s MMA GOAT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She tried to stay away \u2014 but it didn\u2019t last. Former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) two-division champion Amanda…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,33601,638,82,139445,702,9468,3194],"class_list":["post-407979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-videos","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407979","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=407979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}