Julianna Pena broke the mold in her first fight against Amanda Nunes. Can she duplicate that performance?
The main event of UFC 277 is one of the more curious rematches in recent memory. Last December, Julianna Pena scored a massive upset over Amanda Nunes via second-round submission. Not only was Pena a sizable underdog, as high as +700 on some books, but she also only won in a way that was quite divergent from her previous UFC fights. Will lightning strike twice? Was the performance a sign of a developing Pena? Was it a bad night for Nunes? Going into the rematch, all of these questions are on the table.
Against Nunes, Pena landed 9.37 significant strikes per minute and 98.73% of her landed significant strikes came at distance. Both of these are the highest of her career. I know I tend to overdo it with the scatter plots, but this one really shows how much of an outlier performance Pena’s fight against Nunes was.
Going into the fight against Nunes, Pena was mostly a positional grappler who did the vast majority of her striking in the clinch and on the ground. In fact, she has landed one or zero significant strikes at distance in four of her nine UFC fights. The 78 significant strikes landed at distance against Nunes are more than her previous eight fights combined (73).
While Pena usually relies on her control in the clinch and on the ground, that was also mostly absent in the previous fight. When they did engage in the grappling realm in the first round, it was Nunes in the top position. The 4.94% of the fight Pena spent in control positions was the lowest of her entire UFC career by far with the majority of it coming prior to the inevitable finish in the second round.
It was also a somewhat unusual performance for Nunes as well. She normally does a good job controlling range and limiting the volume of her opponents. The former champion allowed Pena to attempt 16.01 significant strikes per minute, which is the highest volume she has faced in UFC/Strikeforce for a fight lasting over a minute.
Nunes seemed surprised that Pena was able to land on her at range, but she has regularly faced opponents with longer reach. In fact, her previous three opponents, Megan Anderson (72"), Felicia Spencer (68") and Germaine de Randamie (71"), all have longer or similar reach compared to Pena (69").
Most opponents seem deterred by Nunes’s striking power. Some of her most memorable performances are quick knockouts over the likes of Holly Holm, Ronda Rousey and Cris Cyborg. However, since the Holm fight, Nunes has gone four-straight fights without a knockdown and averages only 0.55 knockdowns per 15 minutes of fight time for her UFC/Strikeforce career.
Pena’s willingness to wade into range and throw with somewhat reckless abandon was an asset in the first fight. Nunes will have to find a new way to maintain range in order to be successful in the rematch. One potential route could be her leg kicking game. Nunes was able to inflict damage to the legs in the first fight. For her UFC/Strikeforce career, she has averaged 0.96 significant leg strikes per minute and 21.12% of her landed significant strikes have been leg strikes. Both of these are above the average for a ranked fighter, 0.68 and 15.10% respectively.
Nunes’ cardio was a concern heading into the first fight. After two-straight fights at featherweight, the cut to bantamweight was likely more difficult In the past, Nunes was able to go to her underrated wrestling when she began to tire.
She averages 2.46 takedowns per 15 minutes and has held control positions for 33% of her cage time. In the first fight, Nunes had success in the first round working from the top position. However, Pena’s scrambling ability forced Nunes to work in the top position, while this was a time for rest in some of her other fights. Despite this, Pena has displayed rather poor defensive wrestling in her UFC career. She has stopped only 22% of her opponents takedown attempts and allowed her opponents to land 2.12 takes per 15 minutes of fight time.Relying on the wrestling game remains a viable path for Nunes.
Statistically, Nunes has clear advantages in the striking and grappling aspects of MMA. However, it is hard to ignore their first encounter, which happened less than a year ago. In the end, this fight will answer the questions enumerated in the introduction of this article. The first fight was either an atypically strong performance from Pena, anomalously weak performance from Nunes or a changing of the guard at women’s bantamweight.