Amanda Nunes’ Next Title Defense Set For UFC 224
The UFC has officially announced Amanda Nunes’ next opponent.
On Thursday (March 8, 2018), the promotion announced that the women’s bantamweight champion would make her next title defense against rising contender Raquel Pennington at the upcoming UFC 224 pay-per-view event.
Nunes comes into this fight on a six fight winning streak. She won the title from Ronda Rousey, which marked the final bout of her storied pro-MMA career, back in December of 2016 at UFC 207.
In her most recent bout, she successfully retained her title against Valentina Shevchenko by split decision in September at UFC 215.
On the flip side, Pennington is coming into this fight on a four fight winning streak that includes wins over Jéssica Andrade, Bethe Correia, and Elizabeth Phillips.
Her most recent fight came back in November of 2016 at UFC 205 when she picked up a win over former women’s bantamweight champion Miesha Tate.
The UFC 224 pay-per-view event is slated to go down on Saturday, May 12 in Rio de Janeiro. The main card will air on pay-per-view at 10 p.m. ET while the preliminary card will air on FOX Sports 1 at 8 p.m. ET and the promotion’s streaming service, UFC Fight Pass.
As of this writing, the Las Vegas-based promotion has yet to finalize the lineup for this card but they will be announcing more bouts for this upcoming pay-per-view event in the coming weeks. Here is the updated card:
Champ Amanda Nunes vs. Raquel Pennington – for women’s bantamweight title
Ronaldo Souza vs. Kelvin Gastelum
Vitor Belfort vs. Lyoto Machida
Nick Hein vs. Davi Ramos
Ramazan Emeev vs. Alberto Mino
Junior Albini vs. Aleksei Oliynyk
Cezar Ferreira vs. Karl Roberson
Jack Hermansson vs. Thales Leites
