At UFC 238, Nina Ansaroff’s four-fight winning streak came to an end when she stood toe to toe with undefeated phenom Tatiana Suarez. Although this was the first time we saw Tatiana Suarez reveal a kink in her armor, it would still be a task to argue that she did not cruise to her eighth professional victory at Ansaroff’s expense. But according to Ansaroff’s fianceé and reigning UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes, there was a contributing factor behind that result that goes beyond the naked eye (Transcript via MMA Fighting):
“Nina had throat infection and was on antibiotics,” Nunes said during a UFC 239 media scrum. “And she still looked at me at the emergency [room], when only the UFC and the UFC doctor knew that she was sick at the emergency, and said, ‘Amanda, I don’t want anyone to know about this, I don’t want the UFC to put this on the media. This fight won’t get cancelled. I’ll reach my limit ]and fight].’
“Not taking any merit away from Tatiana, but you saw that Nina almost won in the third round,” Nunes said. “I believe she deserves a second chance, an opponent that puts her in the mix for a title fight. Not taking anything away from Tatiana, but I knew that if Nina was 100 percent that day she would have won the fight. It was clear in the third round that Nina could still respond, but it took too long in the first and second rounds.”
Nunes’s belief remains firm, maintaining that if Ansaroff and Suarez were to have a rematch, there would be a different result:
“But it was a great fight,” Nunes said. “Everyone who watched it, those who trained with her knows Nina’s potential. No doubt about it, if there’s a rematch the result will be different.”
Do you believe a rematch between Tatiana Suarez and Nina Ansaroff would have a different result?
