Amanda Nunes comfortable with GOAT label but not done racking up wins just yet

Reigning two-division UFC champion Amanda Nunes isn’t a boastful person, but she’s comfortable with wearing the label “Greatest of All-Time,” and rightfully so.

A quick look at her career speaks volumes, having taken out a who’s who list of top female fighters across multiple weight classes. Nunes said she heard all of her detractors along the way, so she’s happy to receive some praise now that she’s at the top of the game.

“Honestly, yeah, because I did it,” Nunes told MMA Junkie. “I did everything. I proved it already. I feel like I hear so many other things, too, and I’m OK about it – bad things. Not that I’m OK about it, but it is what it is. People say things, what am I going to do? Am I going to punch them? No. I have to listen and let it go. … So if you can handle that, when people talk sh-t about me, I’ll be able to handle anything else, you know? So when they tell me I’m the best and I’m the greatest, I think it, too. I am. I proved it.

“I beat all the good girls, the champions, the former champions. (Cris) Cyborg, everybody was terrified of her. She would beat everybody. Thirteen years without losing. Ronda Rousey. Holly Holm. All of the big names. Miesha Tate. Valentina Shevchenko. All of those girls are very tough girls. Those fights made me who I am today. Now, if I have to go through a war, I’m going to. That’s made me stronger. I am the ‘Lioness.’”

With Nunes’ professional life in peak form, she’s had an opportunity to make strides in her personal life, as well. Her wife, UFC strawweight contender Nina Ansaroff, is currently pregnant, and the two are thrilled at the opportunity to become parents later this year.

“It’s pretty cool,” Nunes said. “We’re very excited. It’s a new part of our life. We’re very excited about it. We planned everything. We would be scared if we didn’t plan anything, if you’re not strong financially. If we didn’t know how to raise a child, I would be scared.

“We cannot put this child on the planet if we cannot take care of him. We cannot be dependent on other people to help us take care of this child. We really have to have our sh-t together, and we have to do this. So when I got everything together, I got all the big fights and my bank account looks the way it’s supposed to look to have a child, I looked at Nina like, ‘Now is the time. Now we’ll never have to depend on other people,’ because depending on other people is crazy. We’re going to have everything. The scholarship of our child has to be paid now. We can make this happen, and now we are here, we are excited, happy, and I can’t wait for the moment.”

So what does that mean for Nunes’ career? After all, she has already defeating the biggest names in the sport. With little left to prove, what else could she really want to accomplish?

A lot, Nunes said.

“Honestly, I just want to keep doing this, keep fighting,” Nunes said. “I feel like this is my job and always was, from day 1 in my life. I love to do this. I don’t know what I would do without fighting. This is the thing that I like to do: training and fighting. This is what I like to get ready for when I wake up in the morning and do. I will be very sad one day, maybe when I retire, when I don’t wake up and go to the gym. Being able to go do something else, that is going to be very weird for me, because I’m going to do something else one day. I know that. But to think about it, that I’m going to wake up to go to the office and not the gym, that’s going to be weird for me.

“For now, I just want to keep doing this. Whatever life shows me, I want to see what it is. Now it’s Felicia Spencer and the first time defending the 145-pound belt, and after that, it’s probably going to be 135. There’s going to be new faces coming up. I can see what life is going to show to me.”

Nunes (19-4 MMA, 12-1 UFC) and Spencer (8-1 MMA, 2-1 UFC) meet in the main event of Saturday’s UFC 250, which takes place at the UFC Apex in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPN and early prelims on UFC Fight Pass/ESPN+.

According to the oddsmakers, Nunes is a 6-to-1 favorite, implying about an 86 percent probability of victory, but the future UFC Hall of Famer insists she’s not taking anything for granted.

“This girl is good,” Nunes said. “Everybody underestimated her, but I’m not. I’m ready for her. That is the first rule in my book: Never underestimate an opponent. This girl went three rounds with Cyborg. There’s a reason she’s going to face me on Saturday, and I’m ready for her. I’m looking at it like I’m facing another Cyborg in front of me. It’s the way I look at it, and I’m ready for her.

“I’m so ready for this fight, and I really look at her that she’s going to be ready. I know she’s going to. She’s not coming there to lose. She’s going to step in there and try to get this belt, but she’s not going to get it. I’m going to be ready for her.”

At just 32, Nunes has the physical ability to compete for several more years. But with a growing family at home and a shrinking number of new contenders in her way, could motivation one day be a concern?

Perhaps, but that time is not now, she says.

“I also want to do other things,” Nunes said. “I want to be able to spend more time with my family in Brazil. I want to do so many things, but I think now that I can’t. I love this so much. My mother always asks me, ‘You’re going to stop when you’re 40-something or 50? You have to really start thinking about it,’ but it’s so hard for me to think that. This is the fight of my life, and I love this adrenaline. This is what I love to feel: fight week.

“For my mind, my heart, this is something that brings me in the mood I like to feel. I don’t know what I’m going to do to feel those things when I retire.”