UFC bantamweight Norma Dumont is campaigning for an interim title bout with Amanda Nunes after 135-pound Kayla Harrison was forced to undergo neck surgery, and her head coach Diego Lima is confident that the UFC could make it happen.<\/p>\n
Nunes decided to end her retirement and return to action to challenge former teammate in the co-main event of UFC 324 on Jan. 24, and Harrison said on Thursday that the bout was \u201cpostponed\u201d after her surgery. Nunes has yet to comment on the situation, and it\u2019s still unclear how long it will take for Harrison to be cleared to fight again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lioness\u201d is a former two-division champion in the UFC and last fought in June 2023, beating Irene Aldana in her final UFC appearance. For Lima, the fact she decided to put the gloves back on means that waiting indefinitely for Harrison wouldn\u2019t make much sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there are pros and cons,\u201d Lima told MMA Fighting. \u201cAmanda took a long time to decide to come back and she did come back, she prepared herself, she trained, she\u2019s ready, she wants to work. You can\u2019t tell someone like that to stop everything without giving her a goal, a date, a clear horizon. That\u2019s not good. Even if she might want to choose to fight Kayla because Kayla is the champion and sells well, I think the downsides are also very big. So I think for Amanda to stay active and truly make her return now that she\u2019s decided to do that, the belt is what matters most for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
With that in mind, the Chute Boxe head coach argues why Dumont should be the one to challenge her fellow Brazilian for an interim title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe it\u2019s the only fight that makes sense,\u201d Lima said. \u201cI don\u2019t see why you should freeze a division because of an injury. The best thing to do is definitely let the division move on. We don\u2019t know how long Kayla will be out. It could be six months, it could be a year. We don\u2019t know. And it\u2019s a division with other fighters who are chasing a dream, pursuing a dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmanda ruled this division for a long time, and now she\u2019s coming back, and nothing makes sense for her but a title fight. I think the right thing to do is for Amanda to fight for the interim belt, and definitely against Norma Dumont. Am I biased to say this? Maybe. But I think anyone who understands MMA, anyone who follows the division and the UFC knows there\u2019s no other fight to make besides Amanda vs. Norma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dumont is currently riding a six-fight winning streak in the promotion, the last three at bantamweight against Germaine de Randamie, Irene Aldana and Ketlen Vieira.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho else in the division is on a winning streak like Norma has? No one,\u201d Lima said. \u201cNorma is on a six-fight winning streak, ranked No. 3. It\u2019s hard to get a fight for Norma. The higher-ranked fighters always avoid her. Literally. She goes on Instagram and calls people out and the fight gets discussed internally, and there\u2019s always an excuse. So yes, they run from her. That\u2019s the reality. I believe, and I\u2019m sure that Amanda is a very tough fighter and she wouldn\u2019t run. So I think it\u2019s fair, Amanda vs. Norma for the interim title. I believe in that, I have a lot of faith that it can happen, and I believe it\u2019s the fight the UFC has to make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC bantamweight Norma Dumont is campaigning for an interim title bout with Amanda Nunes after 135-pound Kayla Harrison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":["post-414004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414004","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=414004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}