A women’s bantamweight trilogy fight between Amanda Nunes and Julianna Pena will headline UFC 289 in Vancouver, Canada on June 10th.
The 33-year-old Pena shocked the world back in 2021 when she cast aside her role as the heavy underdog and opted to go toe-to-toe with Nunes in their first title encounter and gradually began to gain the upper-hand, hurting her with punches before eventually sealing one of the sport’s biggest ever upsets by submitting her via rear-naked choke.
That brought an end to a dominant 12-fight winning streak for Nunes, who had been widely considered as the best female fighter of all-time, and so of course a rematch was inevitable.
And this time in the summer of last year it was ‘The Lioness’ who seized back the title as she fought her way to a unanimous decision victory.
Both fighters haven’t set foot in the Octagon again since, with a third fight always being a case of when rather than if.
And so almost a year later they are now set to reignite their rivalry once again in the main event of a UFC 289 card that sees the promotion finally return to Canada with the likes of Stephen Thompson vs. Michel Pereira and Dan Ige vs. Nate Landwehr also having been added to the line-up recently.
