MMAOB staff writer Adam Martin takes a deeper look at one of three championship fights set for UFC 245, a five-round UFC women’s bantamweight title fight rematch between champion Amanda Nunes and challenger Germaine de Randamie. The event takes place on Saturday, December 14 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Amanda Nunes (-280)
Nunes (18-4) is the UFC women’s bantamweight and featherweight champion. The 31-year-old Brazilian is 11-1 overall in the UFC and is currently riding a nine-fight win streak since her lone UFC loss to Cat Zingano back in 2014. Some of her wins in the UFC include Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm, Miesha Tate, and Valentine Shevchenko twice. She also has a previous victory over de Randamie from back in 2013. Nunes is an incredibly dangerous and well-rounded fighter. On the feet, she boasts incredible knockout power in her hands and on the ground she goes or the finish at all times. She has very few flaws in her game. Many consider her the women’s GOAT and a second win over de Randamie would certainly help strengthen that argument in her favor.
Germaine de Randamie (+240)
De Randamie (9-3) is the former UFC women’s featherweight champion. The 35-year-old native of the Netherlands is 6-1 overall in the UFC. She holds notable wins over Holly Holm, Aspen Ladd, and Raquel Pennington. In fact, she’s only lost once, to de Randamie in her second UFC fight back in 2013. De Randamie is primarily a striker and on the feet, she packs tons of power in her strikes. In her last fight, she needed just 16 seconds to knock Ladd out which shows just how much power she has. Her grappling is not her A-game, but it has improved over the years. De Randamie is riding a five-fight win streak into this fight and earned the rematch with Nunes after having not lost in six years. But if you watch that first fight again, you wonder just how de Randamie wins this time around considering Nunes has only gotten better since then.
Fight Breakdown: These two have fought before and that was back when Nunes was still new to the UFC and kind of raw in her game. In the six years since then, she’s transformed into the greatest women’s MMA fighter we’ve ever seen. De Randamie is a talented striker with knockout power, but she doesn’t have the complete MMA game that Nunes possesses. The first time these two fought, Nunes took de Randamie down and beat her up for a first-round TKO victory. Once again, that’s her path to victory. Although Nunes could very well choose to stand and trade with de Randamie on the feet, taking her down seems like a less dangerous fight for Nunes. Look for Nunes to push for a takedown, get the fight to the mat, and rain down ground and pound for a TKO victory, though I’m not discounting a submission either once Nunes roughs de Randamie up for a bit. With five rounds to work, the likelihood of a finish in this one is very high.
Prediction: Amanda Nunes wins via TKO
