Brendan Fitzgerald and Sayif Saud preview the UFC 289 main event matchup between Bantamweight Champion Amanda Nunes …
foreign Champion Amanda Nunes is looking to defend her bantamweight belt for a sixth time at UFC 289 as the Octagon returns to Canada on the other side Irene aldana looking to give Mexico another champion here for the big preview is Fortis MMA headman safe Saud safe based on Arena aldana’s last three stoppage wins safe to say she’s earned this Championship opportunity against the future Hall of Famer Amanda Nunes should be a great fight absolutely this is a big one Brendan and Amanda is widely regarded as the female goat of the bantamweight and featherweight division she’s had some incredible performances inside the Octagon over the years we’ve seen her amazing knockout power she’s also a black belt and Jiu Jitsu with good wrestling and a very Solid Ground game she has amassed 10 Championship wins over the course of her career which is just amazing she’s taking on the streaking Irina aldana who has captivated us and really kind of gotten people rooting for her and I think people are excited about this fight but Arena has got fantastic boxing awesome footwork some of the best in the bantamweight division that she uses to move around the Octagon she’s also crafty on the ground I can’t wait to see this fight unfold a lot of people thought it was just an eventuality that Arena aldana would fight for a title came a little bit sooner than perhaps she and some others expected after the fight was originally booked for Pena let’s go into fight Focus we’re going to start with Amanda Nunes and uh her power is certainly one of the reasons why she has a stocked highlight reel and that she is regarded as the greatest of all time in women’s mixed martial arts absolutely I mean just some huge moments and big big fights not only with the hands Brennan but also the legs let’s just take a look at some of the moments that we’ve seen from Mana it’s using that power inside the Octagon this is such a big moment for her I really feel like this was kind of her coming out party against Ronda Rousey her ability to put punches together big huge shots that we kind of never really seen at the Bannon weight division finishes Rhonda huge win then the next challenge was hey you’re a power puncher you’re big you’re strong but can you fight the other person that was known as the biggest puncher ever in women’s MMA and that was Cyborg and we want to stop right here and we just want to talk about some of the technicalities that we see Amanda employ and I want to watch this foot right here just kind of what she does so cyborg starts right here she’s over here right she was over here and Cyborg is moving she’s already gotten stung by Amanda here she’s moving she’s trying to trap we’re going to see how Amanda cuts off the cage and how good she is as her footwork her Lead Foot being right here right now right we’re gonna pay attention to what she does with her Lead Foot and also what she does with her rear foot okay so we’re gonna watch her Lead Foot move here her lead foot’s gonna move huge right she moved her Lead Foot from there all the way to here but her rear foot barely moves well cyborg who was over there has moved all the way over here this is how a man attracts people she’ll keep that back foot here she’ll just track him with the front foot she’s very good at understanding her power base so even though cyborg feels like she’s gotten out of the way a man is still in a very nice set position again cyborg is going to slide again and you’re going to see Amanda barely moves that back foot and look at how much she’s moved the front foot the front foot again is way over here cyborg now is way over here but we see that Amanda really hasn’t moved that back foot very much and doing that she’s got that power loaded and ready and she’s so good at delivering this shot big shot over the top right on the chin without really moving this foot much she’s good at cutting off the Octagon getting people to try to run and locating her power shots so she hit cyborg clean here and I’m gonna let this play this was big big big time I mean everybody was screaming and yelling and to see cyborg fall like this that was the shot heard around the world that one that put her down let’s pause this here A great Striker here in Holly Holm let’s take a look at what’s going on here technically we see Amanda she’s trying to get outside the lead leg Holly knows that right Holly’s very Elusive and the Octagon she moves around a lot we’re gonna see Holly when she comes in this Zone there’s a touch and Holly is getting her distance management okay you’re touching me I don’t want to be here I can get hit Holly’s getting that distance we’re going to see Holly she’s going to slide back away from the power side and Amanda’s like okay all right she when I come in the zone she doesn’t want any of that so she’s backing up so Amanda makes a little adjustment here and we’re gonna watch his big beautiful head kick that she throws all right and I really want you guys to pay attention every time she throws a kick it’s just the beauty of the pivot and how she opens her hips up I mean it’s just it’s really textbook stuff so just another aside right here Holly blocks that kick but what she’s doing is let me borrow you again so what she’s doing is she’s got that big overhand right that we saw right and she knows that Holly’s gonna back up whenever she gets close Holly’s backing up this way give me a little bit of that right so she knows what can I touch her with yeah I can hit her with a leg all right so she doesn’t quite catch her with this Holly sees it but she makes her read now let’s take a look at what happens just shortly after that so a man has got to reach he sees what reactions Holly is doing and then let’s just let this play here faint the right hand boom and this just this happened very shortly after that first scenario and that’s why I put that in there now let’s look at this let’s watch Amanda and her vision Champions have Vision they understand distance Management in a way that most Fighters don’t and that’s kind of why their chance it’s a big reason why we see uh Championship Fighters managing distance they’re always hitting and not getting hit we see a man that she’s gonna faint that jab she’s gonna get that reaction out of Holly there’s that little hand and Holly’s like okay I’ve got time here to throw this sidekick this lead leg sidekick so she feels like she’s out of the way of danger she goes to throw this lead leg sidekick but Amanda I mean look at Amanda a man and you can already see it it’s in motion it’s already in motion because she throws that kick she stays still to throw it and it’s all Amanda needs to throw that head kick and this just happens literally maybe a minute or two after that first exchange and Holly tries to get out of the way but it’s just perfect placement so she got Holly to bite on the reaction to try to back up and once Holly stayed there and made that mistake she pays the biggest price gets hit with that head kick this just shows how Amanda uses a range and understands where she needs to be on the power well we certainly know her highlight reel is stocked because of those power shots both with the hands and the legs striking diversity is something that Amanda Nunes has in Spades she’s not just a knockout artist only very technical and has a lot of striking diversity absolutely Brennan she didn’t become the greatest female fighter ever just throwing bombs she’s very very technical she’s got a great kicking game that she uses from the Orthodox and also the Southpaw let’s take a look at some of the tricky thing things that she does in the Striking Department here she is against Cyborg and I just want to show you this is the very beginning of the fight let’s look at how she comes out right away let’s watch this foot right here I want you to take a look at every time Amanda Nunes throws a kick how well she turns that foot gets all that torque to open up her hips she’s very very powerful but also still very very fast she’s going to open up with this big low kick and she’s going to knock cyborg off balance big time and we’re gonna see where she lands this right on the calf which is going to kill the motion and then also again the foot is all the way turned out opening the hips up beautiful kick but that’s not the impressive part after she knocks cyborg off balance she sees an opportunity she hits her with the one and then follows up with the big right hand and she does it immediately right usually we say throw punches and then throw kicks with Amanda she’ll throw kicks low right she’ll catch people off balance and as they’re trying to come back balance she’ll hit him with hands so something that she’s really really good at is something that you don’t see a lot of nails are with the two gets her off balance right from the jump of the fight here she is against Raquel Pennington and I think this is very interesting they’re in very close quarters here they’re close to each other usually you see some wrestling here or you’ll see a clinch or you’ll see some boxing watch how opportunistic a man is with her striking she’s always paying attention so you see her she’s down here she’s always looking and watching right you would think okay maybe she’s going to throw some body shots maybe she’s going to clench watch what she does here she sees an opportunity and she’s been banging this leg the whole fight she goes right back to it hard leg kick right here gets Pennington sideways and again what do we see she’s got her rocked on the bottom here comes the top flashes the jab Pennington not in time again boom one two right down the middle I’m getting you low I’m getting you high I’ve got you frustrated beautiful stuff here from Mena Nunez now we’re going to stop this we’ve seen her executing in the Orthodox dance right we’ve seen this before this was her last fight with Juliana Pena she comes out Southpaw and uses this almost the whole fight and I want to look at what she does here and how tricky she is so she’s got her hand out here measuring distance and Pena is going to meet her and touch that hand right here right when she touches that hand she knows she’s got the right distance to fire this front kick right up the middle this is so smart by her right she sets traps she lets people walk into him walk into them and then she fires the kick so she’s giving her something up the middle because Pena likes to charge right up front so this whole Southpaw stance that she used really messed painting up and gave her fits and then we’re going to see her again she’s going to stick that hand out she’s just going to go right back to measuring and just not something that we saw her do before so just shows her adjustment and her ability and diversity and her striking how she can utilize it so great stuff here and then finally we see her and Pena facing off here in the South Pole again this time Emmanuel is just waiting right and we talked about how we know Pena likes to come straight in she likes to come straight in she’s that type of fighter right we saw it in the first fight she’s going to come straight in she’s going to throw one too she’s going to clinch she’s going to look for an opportunity to make the fight gritty Amanda knows that and the way that she made this switch in her game she throws the left hand but as you see she puts her right hand in front her right hand is the lead when she’s South Paul right and we know how much power she has in the right hand she’s gonna catch her clean coming in here and drop her she dropped Pena two or three times with this combination and we’re gonna see why Here Comes Pena charging in she’s gonna throw that initial punch Amanda sits with the left hand but look at this we see this hand is down we know that Pena is charging in and Amanda has that right hand ready to go and she throws it right over the top and we’re going to see pania’s eyes are even closed before the punch even lands and she does this a lot right she kind of just closes her eyes and just kind of goes in and Amanda just sat weighted invaded her and hits her with this beautiful right hook dropping her and and really puts her on her butt it was one of the biggest changes I saw in this fight was the way that she adapted the Southpaw stance and I look for her to do the same thing against aldana because aldana moves a lot towards the power side here she is with Sarah McMahon and I just want to show you the way that she uses her length Sarah McMahon is going to wind up here with a big kick and throw it we’re going to see a man just slide just effortlessly out of the way but right in this position right here as they turn around Sarah is completely turned around and when you look at the distance that Amanda is at right here how far away she is from Sarah I mean she’s pretty far away right watch how she closes this distance here Brendan as she turns around Amanda is going to get so long with this right hand and we talked about it in the power section she’s so good at delivering this shot from distance and look at how far she is here how much space she covers but not only that she’s very good with this little left hand she carries it down low here but she always finds a way to track it so she hurts her with her right hand but watch this little shovel hook right here boom gets her head up tees her up perfectly for another follow-up shot the right hand sits her down Amanda Nunez can switch stances she’s got power and skill in both hands Left Right gotta watch out for the kicks as well on the other side Arena aldana comes from Mexico a country known to produce legendary boxers and that has certainly been her Hallmark albeit in mixed martial arts the boxing has led to some knockout wins and some impressive highlights absolutely aldana has very sharp boxing she’s got a very educated lead hand she uses her jab very well to set up that really nice right hand she can throw it straight but her best punch I think is the hook whether it’s the counter or as a lead let’s take a look at some of the things that aldana does so well with her hands so here she is against Bernardo and when she’s got the reach Advantage interesting enough she’s long but she’s a little bit shorter than Nunes so this is going to be a very big Point here is she’s most of the people she fights she’s longer than not all of them chassan was a little bit longer than her but here against Bernardo when she’s got the length she’ll just walk it in and you’ll see why she’s gonna throw this jab and they’re throwing at the same time but her length is going to win here right and she touches Bernardo and she’s already on her way out when Bernardo throws so she gets that jab going she can get it going forward and she can back people up but she also uses this punch in a different way so here she is throwing a jab and Bernardo has made the adjustment she knows all right I don’t want to get jabbed so she blocks when you parry a jab you don’t want to Parry with this hand if I pair with the other hand the right hand can come over because I have a space there so this is the right defense she parries the shot but let’s watch what aldana does here let’s watch aldana’s lead hand she goes with the momentum of the Perry and comes over the top turns the knuckles over and lands a beautiful little hook right that’s the way she uses that lead hand as an adjuster and gets people to start reacting and when they start reacting bad things happen Brendan and that’s what we’re about to see a lot of bad things are going to happen once you start getting the hands away from the face that’s when openings take place and that’s exactly what’s going to happen so here’s Bernardo trying to react this time aldana with the lead right hand right so she’s covering up but you’re gonna see this little shovel hook right it barely misses but we’ve got hands away from the face now you can see her hands are away from her face she is reacting and we never want to get our hands away from our chin that’s the whole point of a Striker’s trying to do get my hands away from my face so she can touch my chin and this is exactly what happens here she gets her hands way away from the face here comes a big right hand lands it flush right on the chin Bernardo has a good good chin she eats this punch rocks are badly but she stays standing up and we can see again here’s that shovel punch and it’s Just Gonna Miss This is how Adana mixes and matches but right over the top and right on the chin really really good execution here from aldana really well done moving forward though we see that she can mix it up she’ll throw the right hand lead again right here as a lead and she got Bernardo to what she got Bernardo to feign again and move her hand and the way she throws this up punch really really good again it’s down here she’s good at distance management she doesn’t take a too much risk when she’s up close although she does get hit she does get hit quite a bit she doesn’t seem to be scared of it look at the placement on that up punch just another example of her using the lead hand with success Landing it and confusing her opponents keeping them on the heels of a dilemma now this is a very interesting take here Jana likes to clinch likes to come forward right and we’ve seen aldana we’ve seen her move around we’ve seen her set things up here she’s just gonna wait and I what I want you to see is I want you to take a look at how much she’s we always say sit down on your punch I want you to sit out on your punch so you have all the power look at where she starts here right and we’re going to revisit this she starts right here as Jana comes in aldana has made a decision I’m committed I’m not moving I’m gonna fire that straight right hand look at the distance and how much she’s changed where she was right and she didn’t move a lot she just went what down she sat all the way down on that right hand getting all the power in her legs and her butt she Nails Yana and this changes the fight a little bit we’re gonna look at how it does she hurts Jana with a shot and you can see Yana stumble a bit here and kind of get off balance and you already see aldana she’s already skating out she’s already getting away from the power hand really good footwork which we’ll talk about here shortly so now aldana’s like all right I hurt you with that and I’m just gonna stop right here and I want you to start looking at what happens when when somebody’s getting out struck they start closing their eyes they start blinking they start thinking oh something’s coming their confidence starts to break and you’ve seen this a lot cage side and Jana started reacting in a very weird way I mean she started blinking and moving her hands a lot and you can see aldana calm down here and look for the sniper shots so here’s Jana blinken and her eyes are closed again she hasn’t even been hit yet she’s bloodied up she’s hurt that shot hurt her but you can see Al Donna she’s gonna try to throw that left hook she just barely misses her right but she’s kind of getting her timing again Jana just wants to charge forward here she wants a closed distance she doesn’t want to get hit she’s already getting hurt from the outside so here she is charging forward hands are down right these are not the positions that you want to be in especially when you just took a hard shot right to the temple but you get frantic and we saw that and aldana aldana is really really a cool customer in there she’s very calm and she’s always analyzing what’s going on so aldana again Eyes Wide Open she’s gonna throw a short little right hand here it’s not really going to land but she’s very good at getting out of the way so she’s going to frame get out of the way and reset Jana kind of still frantic a little bit desperate is going to come at her again here and start to really try to come forward and here’s where we see the big moment I want to watch Al Donna’s right hand here she moves it just a little bit now she’s thrown it and stung her she threw it again coming in so Jana’s like all right she’s got that right hand it’s there I got to be careful so we’re gonna watch the right hand move just a little bit here she’s gonna faint that right hand There It Is Well Jana it’s like all right I’m not getting hit with that right here I’m gonna keep that hand high but the mistake was what again same thing as Bernardo she’s starting to move that other hand she got that other hand away from her face and Al Donna sees that and Lance beautiful hook this is her punch she’s dropped multiple people with it she’s very good at locating it very good at finding the chin and we’re going to let this play she drops Jana gets on top and just starts going to work here she is against Caitlyn Vieira Vieira is a big puncher she’s got a good chin and she likes to stand and bang and aldana knows that so we’re gonna watch Al Donna set this up she’s gonna throw this jab here and she’s going to get a reaction right here again we talked about the reaction Viera is going to go to Parry this shot aldana is going to come short but look at where she lands she lands this right hand right over the top the era stayed still right aldana his head is now way over here she started over here okay so that’s what you want to do you want to Blind your opponent then you want to get your head out of the way and you want to land your shot and that’s exactly what she does here lands a perfect right hand starts taking the lead a little bit she’s got VR reacting she always throws that jab afterwards and let’s let’s remember that so here she comes she’s moving to the side High hands there’s that little faint and look at the hand of the era we’re going to let this play and then we’ll go back and look at it huge punch and this follow-up shot was just vicious put Viera out cold now let’s look at this this tells the whole story again here’s the hand it’s up high all right I’m ready well you know aldana she was ending everything with what she throws and then what she throws the Jack she does her deal she throws the right hand she ends with a jab so again you set traps so viera’s like all right she’s probably gonna jab I think she’s gonna jab this hand comes out watch viera’s hand here watch what she does with that hand she thinks it’s a jab she’s going to Perry the jab she comes right around that and she’s gonna land that perfectly on the chin and when you see the impact here right this is what you want as a striker you want those big two Knuckles right on the chin that’s what you’re looking for not even the whole hand those two Knuckles right small surface area and she Nails her with this punch I mean look at the rotation of the head and that’s what really knocks people out is their head whips around Irena aldana dangerous on the feet with the boxing you mentioned earlier that Amanda Nunes will eat you up if you circle to the power side and also that Arena aldana tends to do that but she does have great footwork and she can work the lower half of her body well and she’ll figure to need it against newness absolutely Brennan I think she’s got some of the best footwork in the bantamweight division right but not only with the hands she also has good kicks and she utilizes it all together let’s take a look at some of the things she does and some of the motion she does I’m just going to let this play let’s just get it back to where she starts at so we can kind of remember all right so she starts she starts right here kind of by that UFC right so we’re going to watch aldana she’s gonna slide this is the power side right and usually you don’t want to slide towards the power side we saw Pennington get eat up with the leg kicks you can’t stay close when someone’s Orthodox and power but what you can do is you can go wide right and if you go wide enough sometimes the other athlete will just follow you okay and then you can create an angle here to strike and this is exactly what aldana does she constantly slides out and creates an angle so she slides out slides out poodle’s trying to find her doesn’t hit her with anything she’s still moving she’ll stop give her a little Juke now she’s almost all the way back to where she started she pulls Fighters towards her poodle love I was just chasing chasing chasing right you start forgetting about all the details you’re like let me track this person down it’s exactly what she does but she’s already where she wants to go she’s already gotten her little bit of a lead in a little bit of an angle and even though she’s in front of the power side she’s a step ahead as far as the timing goes we saw that sit down right hand here she goes again landsat right on the nose catches her head out of the way so she pulled her in pulled her in pulled her in there goes that jab again that Snappy Jab and here again it’s the same thing she kind of Misses here and we’re gonna see her move around she gets out of the way this time instead of using her hands she’s going to use kicks so again she’s far enough away that she’s thinking about boxing she’s created her angle but she’s Landing kicks and she’s got good turn on her foot good position and you’re gonna watch her again she’s just gonna slide out of there oh I’m gone so she does this over and over again well she’ll land and then she’ll move this is probably one of the best cases I’ve ever seen of someone moving and hitting and moving and hitting and moving and hitting I’m just going to let this play here she’s going to get a range here on mellow she’s gonna find that jab right there boom boom look at this one two right here so again she’s so good at moving around she started all the way over here we let it play I mean she’s all the way on the other side of the Octagon she’s so good at sliding I mean she really is and she’ll go both directions but let’s watch what she’s doing she got her jab now here comes a return fire right return fire I’m going to the right side I’m going towards the power side which we said is a No-No but if I’m long enough what I can get away with it she barely gets away with it but she does and she does this a lot but now you’ve missed and where am I I’m in a position to hit you so she’s got her angle even though she’s in front of the power side and here’s a big one too she touches her perfectly on the temple lands that shot and then again Watch she slides out she’s looking at her the whole time watch Al Donna’s eyes you know when you look at the film on her and Nunes they’re always watching they’re not closing their eyes they’re not they’re not confused they’re not just doing whatever happens they’re planning on the strikes that are happening now again with the jab and the distance and then mellow back nope so she’s scoring over and over again with Jabs with one twos mellow is just following her and then finally we see again with the kick her ability to land this kick in close with somebody walking her down just speaks volumes about her discipline and her confidence again look at that turn the foot all the way out she’s confident that she can land a kick no punches with someone coming forward and still not get countered or not get hit because she has the timing we’re gonna see she didn’t get hit she slid right out of there so she’s very good at moving scoring and winning here we see her with Melo she’ll also back straight up we saw her sit down on that right hand she waited on that one sometimes she’ll pull people in going straight back which is very risky right because if they fire a combo and you’re going back you’re in the line of fire but she’s so confident with her timing we’re gonna watch her one step look at the high hands from aldana sliding back confident look at that high left hand and as she fires out she touches her right down the middle there’s that sit down right hand that she has very confident stings her badly and you know you start walking someone down you feel like you got momentum and then boom they hit you with a hard right hand and they’re right in front of you and then they slide out of the way which is exactly what she’s going to do really breaks your Rhythm so here we see her with mellow we’ve seen her throw the kicks we’ve seen her throw them to the legs right she gets the other athlete thinking about her low kick she’s moving she’s sliding so here she’s in pretty close and she lifts her leg up and we’re gonna watch mellow react here I want you guys to watch this hand right and again pretty close proximity which it’s risky to throw kicks you’re on one leg the other person counters and hits you square you’re either gonna get hurt or you’re gonna fall down both of which are not good propositions so I want you to watch that hand and what she does with that hand she’s going to take this hand and she’s going to try to grab and Perry this look at this skill here from aldana aldana is going to take this leg she’s going to go up and over this hand here look at this flexibility look at how high she’s got her knee up here and the balance she’s going to take it over the top and she’s going to throw a head kick in that close proximity and go all Shin to the head I mean this it doesn’t get better than that this is so well done here and the fact that she did it in such a tight space like that really speaks to her ability with her legs too and even though we talk about her boxing a lot I don’t want her kicks to get lost in the full look at that extension on that head kick just beautiful work there by aldana showing her ability to throw kicks even head kicks in that close awesome stuff but we see that clinch here from mellow and people always try to do this to her they try to grab her and this is why we put this in we saw Jana get stung and try to grab and grab and grab we’re just going to watch how smooth aldana is it just kind of framing away here we see Yana she’s waiting for it here comes the charge watch this little frame right here she’s just gonna get a little frame she creates a little bit of space right up top and we’re just going to watch her feet watch her turn her feet out here push away turn the feet out now she’s completely reset she went Southpaw she went Orthodox aldana very good at footwork putting herself in positions to succeed all the time in the Octagon she will need all her tools against Amanda Nunes and before we get into the grappling on each side we’re gonna go into the numbers a little bit because states there are some numbers that tell a story here when it comes to the grappling which one stands out to you well Brandon I mean what jumps out to me is this takedown average right 2.68 to 0.2 and also the second most takedowns landed in women’s bandwidth history I think that It Gets Lost in Translation because the man has got all these big moments and all these highlights for their striking how good her wrestling is right she uses it a lot she uses it offense but also she needs to be defensively good at wrestling as well because people want to take her down they don’t want to get hit with that power so I want to touch on that first kind of look at her defense first and this is a perfect example of it because here she is against Sarah McMahon uh Olympic silver medalist she’s probably the best wrestler ever in the history of women’s MMA as far as credentials go very very powerful and she’s just got a very solid base right not easy to deal with very physical so this was a big test for Amanda and we know a man has got great strike and we’re going to see her here she’s going to kind of make a mistake here she’s going to throw this leg kick but she’s going to throw a real big leg kick look at the hands open up she’s taking a big step she’s even looking down when she does it right and you see Sarah McMahon’s posture Sarah McMahon is just waiting right here she is just waiting she’s straight up and down she’s not moving and I mean she’s just walking it in and that’s what wrestlers like to do if I can touch you I can take you down so Amanda throws this big kick here it comes and Sarah times it here comes the right hand kind of knock off balance and she’s going to collect her legs here and get in really deep on this shot we see Amanda gets this wizard we’re going to talk about this right about here so Amanda’s got this right here he’s got this wizard and Sarah’s in deep on her right she doesn’t have an underhook on the other side this is a good position here for Sarah she’s going to collect the legs and really start driving in here but the wizard is what saves her she takes this Wizard and she takes this Wizard and she hikes her up and you’re gonna see that Sarah McMahon is going to get hiked up here you’re going to watch Amanda hike her up and right when she hikes her up she gets some space so Sarah McMahon no problem I missed my first takedown I’m an Olympic wrestler I can chain wrestle and we say is when you miss your first takedown and you’re down low come up to the body lock and this is exactly what she does we call it biting up to the body lock we’re gonna look at this lock right here this is great position here for Sarah McMahon double under hooks body lock I mean if you told Amanda hey you’re going to be in this spot early in the fight she said man that’s not going to be good uh Sarah McMahon has done this thousands of times from this position very very comfortable many ways to finish so let’s watch what she does sir McMahon uses the body lock she gets her position she steps through and she steps behind this is exactly what you want she’s using her head as a lever to knock her off balance she’s got the body lock she’s got her knee behind and she’s using her hip behind her to bump her backwards right this is a great takedown it’s very very high rate of success and the position that she was in you would think for sure that she would finish and I’m just gonna slow play this just a little bit we’re going to look at what saves Amanda here it’s just one little detail right here and this just shows you this is just a Champion’s heart too a man has just got this little toe just this little toe just dragging in this little toe was how she kept her balance and what you want to do in this position Brendan is you want to get this leg behind again right I don’t want to have you behind my hips I need to step behind you again and that’s exactly what a man is going to do she keeps her balance miraculously she takes that leg out you’ll get the focus look at the intensity it’s there she still has this wizard barely just just barely hanging on here which speaks through athleticism when I watch this I was pretty impressed she’s going to get that back down now all right she got out of that that’s the second takedown she got out of in a row but things haven’t gotten a lot better for her Sarah’s like wow okay she’s still got the body lock she’s in deep with double unders right Sarah McMahon again great wrestlers can chain she’s like man this girl’s stubborn let me step inside here so here she steps inside she’s got control here she loads the hip and she’s gonna try to hip toss her and kind of work through here another pretty high percentage takedown we see that Amanda just has that little wizard just a little bit you want that a lot deeper but that just makes us much more impressive so she steps through and Amanda we’re gonna see that Amanda is off the ground here for just a second she’s off the ground look completely off the ground but again she’s like a ballerina here with her feet she’s gonna land that toe right there again and these are the moments right these are the moments that change a fight maybe she gets McMahon gets his takedown boom she’s heavy on her this is earlier in her career it breaks her who knows but that tell again and that scramble and that mindset to keep going saves her so she stops this takedown she uses that wizard hard here now now this is what we want we want to Pummel inside she creates space and she’s out of there but this is such a good example of her takedown defense she’s not easy to take down this is why people don’t try to take her down she shut down sir McMahon three attempts there here she is against Raquel Pennington we know that she was eating up this leg so here she goes she’s chopping that leg down we saw that we start adding on the punches There She Goes adding on the jab and Pennington was really getting eaten alive here on the outside and something we all know about Rocky is that she’s super tough right I mean she’s just not a person that’s going to quit so you can see Pennington kind of thinking here I gotta change the momentum so Pennington is going to come right at her sometimes that’s just what you have to do you just got to close the distance things aren’t going well I got to get inside so she throws this jab this is just amazing again the timing of Amanda Nunes and just the fight IQ and how she uses her grappling she’s trying to punch her in the face no real contact we see how high Amanda is here and where she’s at so Raquel’s like okay you know we’re about to get an exchange watch the level change here that we get from men and Nunes she’s gonna level change get her head way in here deep and get on this double she’s got her hands underneath the thighs and even though her hips are out a little bit she surprised Pennington so much from where she was to where she now is and we’re talking about a split second I mean that happened very very quickly now she’s going to power double her this is a power double whenever you can just rip somebody off the ground like that and flail their legs and you can see the major driving Point here is the head position right the head is like an arm the head goes in the middle and you just take the leg so this is all about timing though it’s the timing of Amanda Nunes that lets her land this takedown so perfectly and so effortlessly she’s in a control position here She is again against Pena we talked about the Southpaw she’s out here she’s feigning she’s faking is she gonna throw that combo over the top is she going to throw that front kick we looked at all that stuff we know she has all that pain is thinking about all that is she going to front kick me is she going to throw that combo she’s got to download all that information let’s watch what Amanda does here she’s pumping a little bit a little bit of hands showing her something here she comes nope I mean the timing on these takedowns she gets a little high crotch entry but again we see how high she is and where she’s at right and where she starts at and how she sets up those takedowns and level changes the timing is so good she’s going to get this hand you see it behind the knee she likes to kind of run this little knee tap and she runs that side a lot and that’s what she’s going to do she’s going to run that knee tap and just drive her legs run run run run run run get Pena down great takedown great timing good control now what can she do on the ground here she’s got Sarah McMahon down we just want to go over the details we know she’s a black belt in Jiu Jitsu she’s getting big high tier let me get some big Heights gets my head up top so I can get a lot of velocity and bring this down here and get some momentum right cause some damage watch how she transitions this so as she’s trying to hit McMahon man kind of blocks out with her hand she’s going to switch from a ground and pound mindset she sees Sarah covering up and I want you to pay attention to this foot remember this foot right now she’s only got one hook right here and that’s important okay so as Sarah’s kind of Defending she goes uh you know what let me throw a couple more shots let me switch my Approach here and very subtly Amanda has taken the back tight and we always say this you should be like a sticker on the back right there should be no space right you hear a backpack you hear a lot of stuff I like to say like a sticker right that you would try to fold on a ball it’s not always easy to do but it’s the head position and how she traps her there’s no space here and you can see even though Sarah’s not fully on her belly she’s already got that hook in there she’s already snuck that hook in and what she does with this position is really really good we know Sarah’s strong you know she’s got a good base but Sarah’s kind of forced her to move and we see during that whole time the man has just got her foot controlling that foot with the hook now here’s that other foot that was already just barely there as a hook and watch what she does as Amanda turns over she’s gonna drive that hook in and she’s gonna start driving her hips down she’s still got that little foot hook now here comes the hip pressure boom so she went from having her up on her base to now what now she’s flat right now she’s flat on the ground her hips are down this is the worst spot in MMA I mean there’s no worse feeling than being flattened out and having somebody with the hooks in putting the hip pressure in I mean it sucks right and in this point you’re just trying to get back to your back you’re trying to scramble that man is so good at taking the back she does it a lot a lot of times she hurts people look at the position here again I mean just sprawled out on her stomach getting pounded very good work here by Amanda she’s very good at riding this back right so again she’s back to the ground and pound she’s hitting Sarah it’s kind of getting close here rest warning but she’s like you know what I’m gonna change my tactic as she rolls over she goes for the choke Sarah does a good job here of trying to control and we’re going to watch this hand right here right you want to go two on one and she is doing that for the most part and that’s what saves her here she’s got just enough pressure alleviated to not get choked a man who turns into a crank but you still see this hand right here is what’s saving her right it’s kind of alleviating some of that pressure so Amanda is going to make an adjustment watch what Amanda does a man is going to attack that very hand she’s gonna take her hand right here and she’s gonna push that hand that was defending off while maintaining the choking hand very very deep she maintains the choking hand she pushes that hand off and then she locks up the choke and you can see her smile and she knows she’s extending the body very very well she’s extending her hips again she’s got her really really lean back and again very very painful no choice but to tap a man is showing she’s very very creative and can finish the fight when it hits the mat with submissions or ground and pound in good positioning I think a lot of fans would say Amanda Nunes is known as the more well-rounded mixed martial artist Irani aldana more known for the Striking but has the grappling in her back pocket to use it in a championship setting it’s absolutely right Brennan she spent a lot of time defending takedowns defending the clinch getting off the fence but she’s also got good offensive wrestling and she’s very crafty when the fight actually hits the floor good at submissions in the transition and we’ll take a look at some of the things she does here so we talked about it we know Yana was getting was getting touched up at space right so we see she’s got aldana against the fence here and we’ll start right here aldana has one under hook right this is a good position she’s trying to get the other underhook and we’re just going to watch how she goes through this this is just all fundamental so here comes the other underhook she slides it up now she’s going to grip her hands together all right now she’s got a lock okay now the battle is about head position whose head is lower than whose who can turn who and this is going to happen here for a little bit not nothing none of us have seen they’re kind of just battling for position here but I want you to watch how slick this is and what aldana does here and how she creates space so we know again she’s got this lock she’s gonna get like a little just a little hip toss not to finish either she’s she’s got good wrestling to counter as well so we’re gonna see her here she’s going to get just a little flare and then right away you can tell she’s not trying to finish because watch what she does with that hand I want you guys to pay attention to how she releases that hand right in the middle of it so you know she’s not really trying to go for the throw she just wants some momentum right when she gets momentum look she releases that hand and she brings it up to frame and you’re gonna see it come up as a frame and she grabs the shoulder so she’s used that momentum and created some space got the other hand out created a frame so I’m watching this I’m just okay she’s on that shoulder she’s trying to push away I was like that’s kind of interesting but what she does here is really slick so what she’s going to do and this is a Muay Thai trick you don’t see it a lot but it is Muay Thai she’s going to connect her hands here and she’s actually gonna use that lock on the shoulder right to control Yana and pull her in right and pull that part of her body down and she does this in a great way she pulls her down right into a knee we see her Landing a good knee right here and again just a little bit of a different control Point usually you see it behind the head right you see the tie Clan so everybody’s pummeled inside here was her creating a little bit of space a little bit of a frame to be really slick and create a knee now she’s going to keep that control point with those hands right and she’s going to pull you on in again right here she kind of doubles up on it and here comes another big knee boom I mean she’s getting good momentum on those too so she uses these little tricks against the fence to not get taken down to create her own space and her own situation here she is against batch she comes underneath and we’re gonna see how physical aldana can be again I really like the attacking the head you always want to attack the head on takedowns when somebody shoots in on you you want to separate their head away from your body and that will always put them off balance and this is what she does very effectively here she’s pushing down on the head she pushes her all the way to the ground nice little shot right there and she’s on top now this this is probably her best skill on the ground so she’s on top here she’s got that hook in but this spot right here you can tell she’s kind of attacking the arm she doesn’t really look like she’s got a whole lot of control right like she could slide off the top we see people do this a lot that’s why we don’t see a lot of arm bars anymore in the UFC people aren’t trying to arm bar off the top aldana is so good at it trains with Diego Lopez who we saw do this beautifully a few weeks ago and I I don’t I know that he’s been her Jiu Jitsu coach at times too I know she has another one but her ability to attack on bottom is is a key here that can’t be overlooked not going to be easy to arm bar Amanda Nunez but I want you to watch how she finishes this so she gets batch here she finishes this arm bar and it’s like okay it got tight she bellies down all right there’s the tap how did that really kind of happen and we’re going to break this down here when we see this slow-mo right here so we see this position she’s looking for the arm now let’s just stop right here okay again like I said look at her momentum Brandon I mean this isn’t like some ideal situation but her creativity and her skill level are what we need to look at batch is like I’m gonna hold the foot right so that way you can’t get any pressure can’t get a fulcrum on me watch what aldana does and we saw this flexibility with that head kick she’s got some good flexibility she’s gonna break free with her legs and she’s gonna get a lock like a body triangle lock almost perfectly because she got long legs you really ideally want it behind the knee but the fact that she locked that up in that position with her head falling over in the middle of that keeps a hold of this arm and let’s watch what she does she’s going to use this lock as a fulcrum point and this arm bar is going to get super tight here when she bellies down right here look at this position of her arm I mean that is a tight arm bar and it’s look at the hips driving straight down I mean she’s got all of her whole body power that’s her elbow going the wrong way I mean the tap was quick and when people saw it first they’re like oh she gave up she did not give up at all very crafty arm bar the way she lands that the way she transitions to it and she does it a lot here we see her with Yana here’s her on top right we’ve seen the submissions we’ve seen the scrambles what’s the ground and pound look like where she is landing big shots on Yana gets her to turn over but let’s take a look at kind of what’s going on here what she’s doing here Brendan is she’s holding on and she grabbed her bicep from underneath right so she’s got her arm trap she’s also got all of her weight sitting on her leg Jana’s leg is in the air here right so again she’s not all the way belly down but she’s kind of in a halfway position controlling the wrist controlling the hand which allows her to what allows her to tee off with that other side she’s going to land some really good shots here on Yana and really hurt her and once she hurts her with these big punches John is trying to grab she knows that she needs to block those Big Shot here and aldana starts to creep up and these big punches he’s still got the hand there she’s let go of it but it’s too late she’s already got her position Irina aldana dangerous on the ground also very good counter wrestling very very slick work you mentioned that Amanda Nunes has double digit championship fights and wins as we go to the X factors and one would think that Amanda Nunes experience in these big moments is certainly going to play a factor 10 title wins I mean that is huge number it should be celebrated man we got to give this girl respect the reason I open with this is we heard about it a lot we know Valentino we know she just lost to her to uh aldana’s teammate yes but Valentina deserves a ton of respect was a great champion and this is I mean two of the maybe the best female fighters ever um we’ll see what Grosso does got to give her respect as well but going up against each other and the reason why Valentina wasn’t a 35er and didn’t have a Reign at 35 was was because of what was because of Amanda yeah so this was their second fight and this fight was a very close fight right it was a split decision fight and in a split decision championship fight and she was the champion you know the fight was close right they did because the champion you got to kind of beat the champion so a split decision very close fight um so here comes Valentina she comes in another Superman punch super Dynamic one of the greats Valentina over the top and we’ve talked about that timing of Amanda so here comes the man on the body lock just kind of figuring it out Valentina or their patented head and arm throw um which works on some people but it doesn’t work here and I don’t know maybe Grasso studied the tape here watch Amanda pop her head out right away and this is what Champions do right they always win the scramble they realize that those small moments are what matter in the big fights and here’s Amanda huge fight this is this is at the end again it was super close she goes to work she starts heading there she is on her hook again we talked about how she gets chest to back and how she’s good at taking the back a jiu jitsu black belt she uses it a lot there goes the other hook and now here we are in a super close fight I’m a judge and this girl’s got back control I mean that’s big right and that was that was one of the major factors but here’s the one I really kind of want to break down and this just comes down to grit and toughness valentina’s got the underhook right here and you know it’s the end of the fight a man has got her butt in your hair a little she’s tired they’re both tired two greats going at it 25 minutes and we’re going to see a man to try to get this take down here she’s going to try to pull and this just takes a ton of energy especially at in the 23rd minute or wherever it was so here she’s going to try to pull right that underhook stops her okay again tries to stop her there goes the leg read right so that’s the second attempt right well Valentine is good she’s got good skill she wasn’t the champ that long for a reason she has that overhook and like we saw with aldana and Amanda she does just enough to stop the takedown she’s gonna pull her leg out but here goes Amanda again I’m gonna get what I want digs in there deep again gets the hands locked under the butt hands under the butt under the legs you’re getting that takedown well not when you’re fighting another great Valentina again is gonna stop this takedown somehow some way she’s gonna will this look at valentina’s face she shoots this underhook again right here I mean Allheart here from Valentina and now a man is kind of up right she doesn’t have that low load to pull so she stops that take down a lesser fighter would just be like oh man geez all right let me just stay here let me just clinch let me just clinch for a second let me just breathe Amanda is a dog when it’s time to fight look at that drops the butt again nope I’m getting this takedown I’m winning this fight I’m ending this rivalry and again super close fight and that was one of the key points right there uh she knows how to win and how to compete in those Championship moments and finally here she is against Megan and we put this in here because we know it was Megan wasn’t really prepared for this she she looked did not look good in this fight but we want to just talk about how creative Amanda is in this situation here’s Amanda with his triangle position switching it to an arm bar in a title fight it doesn’t matter if she’s got a lot of experience it’s still such a good submission and we see Amanda smiling here she’s just smiling look at her face she’s got a big smile on her face she’s enjoying herself she’s having fun in there she’s loose she’s so used to these big Spotlight moments and we’ve got to really take this under consideration advisement she shines most of the time in these championship fights so gonna be a big test here for aldana you mentioned the grit and toughness that Nunes has to get it done especially in those deep Waters against somebody like Valentina shivchenko grit is exactly what arena haldana has shown in some fight of the night fights that she’s been in and figures to need it in this one absolutely right Brendan and and Al Donna has been behind before but she’s never out of the fight she’s very very tough she never quits and we’re going to use this as her first fight in the UFC well it’s funny because we talked about her ability to Circle wide and not get hit with the right hand experience is something isn’t it she’s probably learned this from this here she’s trying to Circle to the power side and here’s a big shot right here she gets dropped right she’s too narrow she gets hit by Leslie Smith Leslie Smith’s honor boom boom boom sometimes here’s where Fighters what they capitulate not Al Donna did you see her moving her head watch her be a dog here she’s like nope I’m not quitting already back up and I thought this was super impressive right here she guts back up but not only does she get back up she lands this little uppercut right here boom right give Smith something to think about and then throws another punch right here so not only am I up but I’m up I’m out and I’m fighting and that all happened pretty quick and she would go on not to win this fight but it would show you kind of her mindset how she never gives up and this would pay dividends for her later on this was a crazy fight a fight of the night these two went at it I mean you know we showed a little bit earlier bloody I mean they were the second or third fight on the card in Dallas but they got fighting tonight just showed you how great of a fight it was between these two but I want to watch this right here so these things happen in a fight and you can really see the character and the mindset of the fighter here aldana is going to get a really bad eye poke really bad and you can see it I mean its fingers right in the eye and it’s deep in there right and it happens very very quick um but you can tell by her reaction right afterwards she’s gonna walk away and she’s going to grab her eye and she’s going to kind of say hey like whoa I need a break well in the Rules meeting in the rest meeting don’t stop unless what unless I stop you right and the ref didn’t see it and it happens you know um we’re not calling anybody dirty it just happened watch how quickly she’s like all right I’m in a fight whatever she completely deals with it she gets that little blink but watch we’ll just let it play she’s right back into the fight right she didn’t feel sorry for herself she gets right back to work this was a super close fight and she would pull away in the third round just by outworking the girl so this shows her shows her ability to deal with adversity and kind of keep going and deal with it quickly which is very important against Amanda and finally here we see her against Macy this was a really really close fight I had a front row seat for this fight and I thought when she got this takedown I was like oh man this you know this is going to be good Macy had gotten some really good positions on her back the round before and I was like man if we can you know get to this spot this will be be ideal and aldana knew that right and aldana keeps her guard closed she’s trying to control here the shoulders and a lot of people said this was lucky but when you watch it nothing’s Lucky in the Octagon she throws this huge up kick and hits Macy right in the living room I didn’t know what was going on really took me a second even to figure it out because Macy just fell but when you watch the replay and you see the location and the way she does this look at what she does with her leg right she’s gonna wind this thing up way back here and she’s gonna get all her legs in there and she’s gonna hit with the heel right and again never out of the fight right that’s what we say you’re never out of the fight it doesn’t look great when you’re on your back and you’re kicking up but it doesn’t matter it ended the fight and got her where she is now the title fight so her not giving up and keeping her mind watch her wind this thing up you know it’s not like she throws it she winds it up and the liver shot is deadly and we always see that oh the guy gave up right I think I saw Garcia he had a little delayed reaction all they gave up let me tell you guys what’s going on with the liver shot the liver filters the blood right and the toxins what happens when it has that trauma right it releases those toxins and a big amount of blood right so your blood pressure goes down immediately well when your blood pressure shoots down like that immediately your body goes man we need to get horizontal fast right something ain’t right watch the reaction from the athlete that’s why it’s always so weird kind of it’s like why what happened looks like it froze them your body is dealing with a huge trauma those toxins that blood floods out your blood pressure drops and your body goes I need I need to lay down right it’s a natural reaction it doesn’t even matter look at Macy’s face she was in tons of pain it goes away fast but it it works so aldana is never out of the fight she’s shown that scrap from her back from the top doesn’t matter what it is knock down wrestling she’s never gonna give up obviously Two fighters that uh want it really badly won a Hall of Famer and Amanda Nunes Arena aldana trying to keep that going from Mexico let’s go to keys to Victory to summarize what we’ve seen we’ll start with the champion well she’s got to cut off the cage you know we we’ve shown the lateral movement that aldana has and how she moves to the power side goes to the weak side she’s very comfortable this is how she gets in her flow and she can pick people apart and hurt them coming in as we saw with that sit down right hand right or that left hook a man has got to pressure her and get her on her back foot not let her get in the flow she can do that Brendan with utilizing the wrestling right we talked about her the second most takedowns ever in the bantamweight division she’s got this the the black belt she’s got the grappling Acumen we have seen how Donna get controlled in in the fight with Macy she got controlled in this second round and I think that Amanda’s Camp is definitely going to probably try to do that or mix and match she always does that anyway so I look for her to use the wrestling lastly I think she should attack from the Southpaw stance it gives her a lot of different options a lot of different reads to enter in on that wrestling and kind of give her a different look kind of trick her a little bit this is a big spot for Al Donna she’s never been there so the more that she can throw at her Amanda the better chance she has at winning and it wasn’t too long ago when she lost that belt briefly to Juliana Pena so she’s still on a mission at bantamweight to really prove how good she is and how much better she is than the rest of the field meanwhile Arena aldana wants to shock the world I mean you just gave me the perfect segue into that how did Pena win that fight she just put on a pace right I mean Pena said over and over again I’m just gonna I’m gonna outwork this girl I’m just gonna I’m gonna put her in a bad spot and everyone was like yeah yeah yeah whatever say what you want I mean obviously a man to prove that she is the better fighter but that high Pace Amanda does slow down some sometimes she does get a little tired this is a short notice fight Al Donna has to act like she’s there to win she can’t be fighting defensive and trying to you know take her time otherwise the man is going to run through it she’s going to have to put the pace on Amanda and she’s also going to have to keep that footwork and movement going so she can set up her offense and her flow and also avoid those big huge power shots that Amanda has whether it’s that big overhand her left hand her kicks she’s gonna have to stay out of the way of that if she makes a miscalculation against a man of circling to the power side it’s going to be very bad and lastly we talked about it she needs to stay off of her back I think a man is going to try to Grapple a little bit and mix it up and aldana can’t lose rounds being on her back for even short periods of time she’s going in there to take the title she’s going to have to be very very impressive and if it’s going to be a decision in a close fight she doesn’t want to lose rounds being on her back well what an upset it would be for arena aldana she’s looking to give Mexico its fourth UFC champion it goes down north of the Border more than three years since the octagon John was last in Canada some of the greatest fans of mixed martial arts reside up there Vancouver has a front row seat for Amanda Nunes a future Hall of Famer trying to add to her Legacy and Arena aldana as mentioned trying to give Mexico another title holder for safe side I’m Brenda Fitzgerald thanks for watching UFC breakdown enjoy UFC 289.