Preview: UFC 259 Main Card

UFC Women’s Featherweight Championship

C | Amanda Nunes (20-4, 13-1 UFC) vs. NR | Megan Anderson (11-4, 3-2 UFC)

ODDS: Nunes (-1165), Anderson (+700)

UFC 200 was supposed to be the biggest card in the promotion’s history up to that point, and so it felt a bit odd when the final scene of the event was Nunes standing tall with the women’s bantamweight belt. It capped off an impressive rise for Nunes, but she was far from a star at the time. She was even the B-side of her title challenge against Miesha Tate, who was coming off of a high-profile win over Holly Holm. In the years since, that crowning moment has taken on more historical importance than anything else that happened that night. Nunes has not lost since, holds both the bantamweight and featherweight belts and has established her status as the greatest female mixed martial artist of all-time. While there have been some middling title defenses, the peaks for Nunes have been amazingly high. Other great fighters of her generation like Holm, Ronda Rousey and Cristiane Justino all failed to even make it out of the first round with the “Lioness.” In fact, Holm is the only one of the three who even lasted a minute. As Nunes continues to bounce between divisions and take apart overmatched challengers, the question after every fight becomes: What’s next? In this case, it is Nunes’ second straight defense of her featherweight title, this time against a dangerous opponent in Anderson.

This shot has been a long time coming for Australia’s Anderson, who was initially slated to fight for the featherweight title in her UFC debut back in 2017. Prior to that, Anderson had essentially proven all that she was going to prove outside of the UFC, winning the Invicta Fighting Championships featherweight title as the culmination of a four-fight knockout streak. However, Anderson was forced to pull out of that UFC title fight due to personal issues, and her UFC debut was instead a loss to Holm that highlighted a lot of longstanding issues. While Anderson’s size and strength make her a fearsome knockout artist, opponents have rarely had trouble taking her to the mat and can usually control the fight from there. To her credit, she has put some obvious work into that part of her game, even if it remains a clear weakness. She survived fine against Norma Dumont before scoring a knockout, and a triangle choke of Zarah Fairn dos Santos was a legitimate sign of progress. There is obviously a huge step from those opponents to Nunes, but if Anderson is ever going to be ready for this challenge, now is probably the time.

If nothing else, Anderson has a puncher’s chance. As a prospect, the book on Nunes was that while she was a physical force and a fearsome finisher, she would tire badly in the later rounds against opponents who could survive. Nunes has adapted well in the years since, managing her gas tank carefully, but that dynamic still shows up from time to time. Her 2019 fight against Germaine de Randamie showed that when an opponent can strike with Nunes and force her to wrestle, the approach can leave her tired in the championship rounds. Anderson’s knockout power does set up a theoretical dynamic where she can spring this upset. Scare Nunes early, force her to wrestle and then score a late finish once she is exhausted. If featherweight is essentially the women’s version of heavyweight, why not be a distaff Derrick Lewis? However, while Anderson might be able to draw Nunes into shooting takedowns, everything after that becomes a concern for the challenger. She is still at a clear disadvantage on the mat, and while she survived well there against Fairn and Dumont, it is also a bit worrying that they managed to get the fight to the ground in the first place. Given how Nunes should outclass the Aussie on the ground, Anderson’s chances for an upset basically come down to a quick knockout, and even that is not promising. Nunes did win a sprint of a firefight against Justino, after all. Crazier things have happened than an Anderson win, but this is still a clearly one-sided fight on paper. The pick is Nunes via first-round submission.

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