Amanda Nunes says Ronda Rousey still acts like UFC 207 never happened. Nunes appeared on the MIGHTYcast ahead of her comeback and was asked whether Rousey had ever reached out about facing her in a return fight. Her answer was a flat no, and she explained it with the bluntness of somebody who finished the job in 48 seconds.
“Ronda, to this day, she doesn’t acknowledge I fought her,” Nunes said. “She never say one word, she never say my name one time in her whole entire life. So they never called me.”
Nunes also had no interest in a fight outside the UFC. “I’m UFC all the way,” she said. “This was my dream, and I want to fight in the UFC. The UFC belt is the belt.” She added that she plans to get a brand new one soon.
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She gets her shot this Saturday, Nov. 14. Nunes returns from a three-year retirement to challenge bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison in the co-main event of UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The fight has a backstory of its own. Harrison is her former training partner, and the two were originally set for UFC 324 in January before Harrison had to withdraw for neck surgery. That postponement let Nunes train on her own schedule. The Lioness walked away after a 14-1 run that included the Rousey knockout and long title reigns at both 135 and 145 pounds, so she has nothing to prove. She’s choosing to put it all back on the line anyway, and I respect that.
Rousey, meanwhile, ended a layoff of nearly 10 years in 2026 and beat Gina Carano at the inaugural MVP MMA event in May. Nunes watched that one as a fan and gave it real credit. “I think it was great for women’s MMA,” she said, and she added that Rousey has far more people who like her than hate her. She was less impressed with Carano’s form, though. Nunes said Carano didn’t look as powerful as she used to after so much time away, and she credited Rousey with helping Carano work through a lot.
There’s one more Rousey wrinkle. On a recent episode of the Deep Waters podcast, Nunes picked her women’s MMA Mount Rushmore. She named herself, Valentina Shevchenko, Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Zhang Weili, and she left off both Rousey and Cris Cyborg, the two most famous women she ever beat. Nunes said four slots simply weren’t enough and that she meant no disrespect. “Honestly, I can put them there, too,” she said. “When I say those things, if I had more spots, I would have put them, too.”
My take: Rousey refusing to say Nunes’ name is about the most human coping mechanism in fight history. It’s the combat sports version of untagging your ex from every photo. It also doesn’t matter, because the scoreboard says her name for her. Nunes doesn’t need a Rousey rematch or an MVP MMA payday, and she clearly knows it. She’d rather chase gold against the woman she used to share a mat with, and that’s the right call. If she takes Harrison’s belt Saturday night at the Garden, Rousey can keep pretending December 2016 never happened, and Nunes will be holding a championship at 135 again.
