UFC champ stuns fans with naked celebration photo
Amanda Nunes is used to making headlines inside the Octagon but the history-making fighter is also creating waves on social media.
At UFC 250 over the weekend, the Brazilian star beat top-ranked Felicia Spencer to become the first woman in history to defend both the featherweight and bantamweight belts at the same time.
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Nunes was better in every area and won all five rounds in what was the first defence of her featherweight championship after jumping up in weight divisions.
The 32-year-old claimed the unanimous victory, with two judges scoring the bout 50-44 and one giving her the fight 50-45.
To celebrate her historic moment, Nunes posted a naked image of herself taken from last year's final edition of ESPN’s Body issue.
The Brazilian shared the snap with her 1.2 million followers on Instagram, explaining that she had modified it to include her second belt.
"ESPN body with an upgrade!" Nunes captioned the image with.
Fans of Nunes were stunned by the powerful image and praised her for the incredible feat that it represented.
One fan commented: "THE G.O.A.T. Congratulations on a perfect performance."
Another added: "Just gorgeous. No words can describe the beauty in this picture."
MMA star Cole Miller simply commented: "Champ."
Nunes set tongues wagging in the lead-up to her latest title defence after sharing another naked image of herself wearing nothing but the two UFC belts she currently holds.
And that wasn’t even the first time, with Nunes previously posing with her belts while taking a shower.
Nunes short of legitimate challengers
During their fight, Nunes opened several cuts on Spencer’s face but didn’t come close to a knock-out finish.
However, the comfortable nature of the Brazilian's victory raises more than a few questions for the UFC.
If Spencer was the top-ranked contender, the UFC where does the UFC find a challenger who could make a competitive fight?
The only woman in the UFC who can fight with Nunes on even terms is flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, who lost two close fights to the dual champion.
Shevchenko could move back up to 135 to give it another crack, but Nunes has lapped the field by a wide margin.
Spencer didn’t look as if she belonged in the cage with Nunes and she'd been handling all the other fighters.
This is an elite athlete at the top of her game who made it look easy, but the lack of a quality opponent is worrying.
Spencer never was able to get into position to bring her black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu into play and at the end of the second round, Nunes had her back and was working for a rear naked choke when the bell rang.
Otherwise, Spencer spent the fight trying to ward off Nunes’ right hands, as the Brazilian fought like she was going downhill. Spencer ate a number of right hands as Nunes bloodied her face.
The only woman at featherweight who appears to be able to give Nunes a run is Cris "Cyborg" Justino, the Bellator champion.
Nunes knocked Justino out in 51 seconds at UFC 232 in 2018 to win the featherweight belt.
Someone is going to have to develop or there are going to be plenty of one-sided women’s title fights for the foreseeable future.
