San Diego, CA — While wife Amanda Nunes has left American Top Team to launch her own gym, Nina Nunes is sticking with the South Florida facility — and actually training at both.
“The Lioness,” the UFC double champ in the women’s bantamweight and featherweight divisions, parted ways with ATT earlier this year, though the split was apparently amicable. Nunes, however, has stayed behind.
“I stayed at American Top Team. I did both. I trained in the morning at American Top Team, I went to Amanda and my gym, I watched her sparring, I coached her sparring, and then I trained conditioning right after that,” Nunes (10-7) told Cageside Press and other media outlets during Wednesday’s UFC San Diego media day. “So I was actively in both gyms. I had good training partners at American Top Team, I’ve been there 15 years. I’m going to stay there until I finish my career, but I also have the gym that I have with Amanda as well. They’re 15 minutes away from each other. It’s no difference to me, Amanda can pick whatever time she wants to train, and we work around that.”
Best known as a strawweight, Nunes returns to action Saturday against Cynthia Calvillo in a flyweight fight at UFC San Diego. It was a bout that was supposed to go down last month, at UFC Vegas 58, only for Nunes to fall ill.
The pair have both fought many of the top names in the sport, certainly at strawweight, but Nunes isn’t keen on trying to compare records.
“I try not to look at fights like that, because you can’t compare how well someone’s going to do compared to who they fought. Everyone’s different,” Nunes observed. “Different styles make different fights. I have seen really good wrestlers in my division. We were both able to fight at 115 so us fighting at 125, I don’t think it’s going to be a huge difference size-wise, maybe just, we’re going to be a little bit more healthier so we can bring out our better selves.”
But, added Nunes, “I feel like I fought the best wrestler, I feel like Tatiana [Suarez] is the best wrestler in my division. I did fight that fight sick, but however, I felt like I did really well against her. Given a minute more, maybe I would have finished her.”
In the end, Nunes doesn’t feel Calvillo is drastically different from what she has seen before.
“I do feel like I’ve seen her before, in other ways. Especially in the gym, I come from a big gym with a lot of different styes. So it’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but you know, a fight’s fight. Anything can happen, I’m ready for anything.”
Watch the full UFC San Diego media day scrum with Nina Nunes above. The event takes place this Saturday, August 13, 2022 at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego, California.
