In pre-fight interviews people probably noticed that Amanda Nunes was sitting there next to Dana White at the conference with a belt in front of her. Someone I know asked me "didn't she lose her championship the last time she fought this same woman?" and the answer to that of course is "yes."
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She holds the featherweight championship but tomorrow's bout is for the bantamweight division, not the other belt. I believe that the featherweight championship, which is actually a higher weight than bantamweight and it goes like this.
- Strawweight (current champion = Carla Esparza)
- Flyweight (current champion = Valentina Shevchenko)
- Bantamweight (current champion = Julianna Pena)
- Featherweight (current champion = Amanda Nunes>
I believe that the featherweight division was basically created by the UFC just so that Cris Cyborg would have someone to fight. She was too big to ask to drop down another 10 lbs because her frame simply doesn't allow for it. I'm sure she COULD do it if she had to, but it would probably disable her ability to fight at all.
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Cyborg was a monster to the point where a lot of people started demanding that they do a test to ensure that she was actually a biological woman. This wasn't necessary in the end (not to mention kind of insulting) because after more than 500 days as champion and only 2 fights defending her belt, she faced Amanda Nunes and lost badly in less than 1 minute.
Now let's get to the point of all this. During the press-conference most of the questions from the press were directed at Pena and Nunes and one of them which was directed at the Champion Pena went like this "if your hand gets raised tomorrow night, have you contemplated going up 10 lbs to challenge Nunes in the Featherweight division?"
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Although I believe that Pena is going to get worked tomorrow in the octagon, I think her answer to this question was perfect when she said "The featherweight division is a division of literally no one." The crowd laughed, and I had my suspicions that she was correct but then I went to go and check just to make sure.
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She's not wrong is all I am trying to say and well, one could argue that the UFC hasn't been pursuing this division because it isn't exactly easy to find women athletes or fighters at least, whose bodyweight it going to be 135-145 lbs, which is what is required. So Nunes running around with that belt on her waist isn't really proof of anything because there literally isn't anyone else to fight up there. In fact, the belt in general has only been fought for 3 times in the history of its existence. Germaine de Randamie was the original champion but she refused to fight Cris Cyborg and was stripped of it. That was back in 2017.
I think there isn't much reason for this division to exist if UFC doesn't even have a roster of competitors for it. The other women's divisions are absolutely stacked so honestly, I don't think we need it. Sorry Amanda, your "other belt" is useless and will likely remain that way.