UFC 289 in Vancouver, Canada on June 10th has a new main event after Julianna Pena was forced to withdraw from her bantamweight trilogy title fight with current champion Amanda Nunes due to suffering from broken ribs.
Nunes will remain in the headlining spot on the card however against Irene Aldana, who steps into this title opportunity on a little under six weeks notice.
The 35-year-old Aldana is coming off two big wins via strikes in a row, having TKO’d Yana Kunitskaya in the first round, followed by a knockout finish of Macy Chiasson at UFC 279 last year.
The hard-hitting also holds a first KO victory over Ketlen Vieira and is currently ranked No.5 in the division while holding an overall 7-4 record in the UFC.
As for Nunes, she is of course the dominant force at 135lbs, with her only defeat in her last 14 UFC appearances was a submission loss against Pena in December of 2021 that’s gone down in history as one of the all-time biggest upsets in the sport.
However, the double-champ has since avenged that loss by winning a unanimous decision victory in their rematch last year to reclaim the title.
While the UFC had then opted to go ahead with a trilogy fight between the two, Nunes admitted recently that she had been surprised by the decision as she had actually been expecting to fight Aldana instead, and now due to a twist of fate that is in fact the match-up that’s going to happen after all.
