Pena holds her own but Nunes shows who the real champ is

I didn't think that Pena deserved the belt around her waist when she won it a few months back in a very strange fight that was so off that I was one of the people that suggested that the entire thing was rigged for the sake of keeping the division interesting and to make more money for all parties involved.

I don't think that Pena deserved the win in their first meetup because I think that Nunes tapped out too easily. I've already written about that in great detail so I don't need to go into it again. When their rematch happened a few days ago it went almost the way that I thought it was going to although it lasted 3.5 rounds longer than I thought it was going to.

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The first round, unfortunately, went about how I expected it would with both fighters not doing very much in the way of offense. It is said that if you have a lot of rounds that it is a good idea to use the early ones to size up your opponent and look for any "tells" that they may have developed in their recent training regimen and that is exactly what we saw. I think the crowd was on the verge of starting to "boo" the duo because almost nothing happened in the first round at all.

By the time the 2nd round was 30 seconds in, everything changed. I guess Nunes figured out all that she needed to about her opponent and was sneaking in several brutal overhand rights that floored Pena a number of times. Those of us in attendance at the overpriced bar I was at were kind of wondering why Amanda didn't follow up very much on any of these knockdowns. It appeared as though she was afraid to engage Pena on the ground as time and time again, Nunes would step back and allow Pena back to her feet.

Things would change later though as Nunes started to engage not just in capitalizing when her opponent was grounded, but actually started to PUT her there by a very successful takedown strategy.

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It wasn't long before Pena was a bloody mess from multiple lacerations on her face because she was on the receiving end of some really stiff elbows in a slow, but well-thought-out ground and pound strategy on the part of Nunes. This however, was a slow process and something that Pena is very good at defending against. She certainly proved that she can still be dangerous on her back but unfortunately for Pena, being on your back for 13 minutes in a row (essentially) isn't going to win you a fight even if you are mitigating most of the damage.

There were a couple of times that it looked like Pena was biding her time and shooting for a submission, but even though the crowd went while and there was some extension of limbs, Nunes was never in any real danger of being submitted. This is evidenced in the fact that as soon as they were both stood back up, Nunes would shoot for another takedown almost immediately.

By the end of the entire thing we went to the judges scorecards and it was not a nail-biter situation at all. There was no chance that Nunes was not the winner of all 5 rounds.

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We didn't need Bruce Buffer to make that announcement about who the winner was: All of us already knew. There was no doubt at all. However, it was kind of surprising to hear that two of the judges gave Pena less than 9 points in round - which is quite rare for a fight that goes all the way - with one judge giving her a mere 43 out of 50 points.

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I don't know what compelled them to deduct 2 points even though it was very clear who the better fighter was. I think, considering that Pena was clearly outmatched that she did a very good job of covering up and staying no KO'd during some of these rather brutal exchanges.

Now the women's bantamweight division is right back where we left it months ago with Nunes being the clear champion with no real competition in her ranks. Pena likely won't call for a rematch and honestly, she doesn't deserve on nor should she really feel as though she has any realistic chance of lightning striking twice as far as that is concerned. For me, I would kind of like to see Pena fight someone else in the higher ranks of the division because she did look like a top-level performer in this fight. The problem is that Nunes really IS that much better than everyone else in there.