After Making History at UFC 250, No One Should Sleep on Amanda Nunes' Greatness

It may have looked easy at UFC 250, but what Amanda Nunes is doing is hard.

The UFC women's bantamweight and featherweight champion defended the latter of her belts Saturday night against an exceedingly tough but outmatched Felicia Spencer. In doing so, Nunes became the first fighter to not only hold two UFC titles at the same time (Conor McGregor, Henry Cejudo and Daniel Cormier are the only others to have done it) but also successfully defend both. 

Nunes' ho-hum level of dominance in Saturday's main event—an unnecessarily protracted five-round 50-44, 50-44, 50-45 unanimous-decision beating that saw Nunes grinning wildly at Spencer as her punches echoed through the UFC Apex center in Las Vegas—may cover up what it is Nunes has done and continues to do as she further cements her resume.

"When I connected, I knew she couldn't handle much [of my power]," the Brazilian told broadcaster Joe Rogan after the fight. "But she could handle it. She could survive ... I'm so happy! I want to call my mother back home in Brazil!"

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Make no mistake: Nunes is already the GOAT of the women's game. It's just a matter of how far she can climb. But it's instructive to look now at how far she's come to get to this point. She may not be as recognizable as other stars, and the featherweight "division" isn't exactly stocked to the rafters. But here she still is, happily laying waste to anything placed before her. Her greatness just comes through, over and over again, striking fear into the hearts of opponent and audience alike, just like it did the time before.

Speaking of striking, according to stats displayed during the ESPN broadcast, Nunes landed 120 significant strikes to Spencer's 36. On one hand, MMA is difficult to encapsulate using only statistics, but on the other hand, yep, that's pretty much your ballgame. It was darn near a perfect performance.

It was the right hand early and often. There was a particularly vicious elbow on the ground to end the first round, a gorgeous counter right at the beginning of the second. I lost track soon after.

Spencer was supposed to have a potential grappling edge. Maybe she could outlast the champ?

Nothing doing. Nunes landed a beautiful throw in the first round and cut through Spencer's guard in the third like it was nothing.

Meanwhile, Spencer had nothing for Nunes on the feet. A shot or two would land here or there, but there was no meaningful defense, much to Nunes' fiendish delight. Joking aside, she probably could have notched a stoppage down the stretch, as Spencer became a bit of a bloody, limping mess, while Nunes, who was the far better fighter to begin with, was still fresh as a daisy.

Nunes appeared to call off the proverbial dogs, though, and allow Spencer to leave with maximum brain cells.

The last time Nunes lost a fight, it was 2014. Of her last 10 opponents, seven were either active, former or future UFC champions. To emphasize, not all UFC champions are of an equal caliber, but good and bad, Nunes soundly beat them all.

When Nunes knocked out living legend Cris "Cyborg" Justino in 2018 to add the UFC women's featherweight title to her mantelpiece, it only took 51 seconds. Cyborg had never been knocked out before, and it lowered her record to 20-2 (1). Cyborg's other pro loss? In 2005 in her professional MMA debut.

In 2016, Nunes ended Ronda Rousey's MMA career in 48 seconds. She captured her bantamweight title by choking out Miesha Tate in the first round of their contest at UFC 200. The reigning UFC women's flyweight champ, Valentina Shevchenko, has only two defeats in 10 UFC contests; both were to Nunes.

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Make all the "bye" jokes you want, but Felicia Spencer is still a pro MMA fighter, and a heck of a tough one at that. She's now gone the distance with both Nunes and Cyborg. There was no apparent tactical need for Spencer to answer the bell for the fifth round, or even the one before, but there she was anyway. One day referees and coaches will get better at preventing unnecessary harm. Saturday wasn't that day.

This was only Spencer's fourth UFC contest, and the loss ran her mark to 2-2. What's next? Nunes' bouts with an undersized Shevchenko were both snoozers that were close enough that scorecards could have gone the other way. Still, there could be some heat there for a trilogy match at bantamweight. Women's featherweight isn't so much a division as it is a concept conjured up every so often specifically for Nunes—the purpose and function originally intended, but for Cyborg. That can come and go.

"That was my goal, defending my two belts," Nunes told Rogan after the fight in regards to her future. "I'm so happy right now. I don't know what is next. But I proved it already, you know?"

We know. Still only 32 years old, she has a lot left to go, and it finally feels like an Amanda Nunes fight is becoming a real occasion. With greatness at this level, the world doesn't have a choice.