Brazil’s Amanda Nunes beats Raquel Pennington and retains UFC title

This earned the Brazilian a stoppage at the 2:36 mark of the final round.

Nunes is best known for her blistering starts and this fight was no different except she was looking to punish Pennington’s lead leg as the challenger was standing directly in front of her during the early exchanges.

Her corner refused her request to throw in the towel replying, “no no no no no no no!”

Clearly perturbed by being taken down in the second round, Nunes marched forward even more in the third, though she finally encountered some tough resistance.

After the bout, an emotional Nunes admitted that the challenge of fighting Pennington, a longtime friend, was an extremely hard one.

Many have voiced their outrage at how her coaches dealt with the situation and the fact that she met her end just moments later just made things that bit more unpleasant. “It might be a bad injury for her to go to the hospital”. It’s important that a fighter loses with dignity, and I think Raquel lost with dignity.

“Unfortunately, tonight (her corner man) failed”. “I want to be done”. [Tecia] used to train me.

“I’ve never fought anybody as a friend”.

Nunes had the clear advantage from the outset of the first round. “Now I don’t know if I will get it, but hopefully I will”. She used to train with us. “We’re going to have a beer and celebrate our friendship”.

According to Fightmetric, Nunes outlanded Pennington in total strikes 152-79.

She showed some signs of a fight back, but Nunes’ attack proved to be too strong as the referee stepped into stop the fight midway through the fifth round.

The Lioness stopped Pennington midway through the fifth round to strengthen her grip on the division, but spoke about her opponent and her fiancée, Tecia Torres, with great respect afterwards. Pennington recovered a bit in the second round and was able to score a takedown for her lone bright spot in the fight.

For five rounds, Nunes bloodied and battered Pennington with hard leg kicks and quick punches.

Nunes has now won seven in a row and has recorded 11 career knockout victories. Amanda Nunes of Brazil has beaten American Raquel Pennington to defend her UFC bantamweight title for the third time.

Despite it being a successful night for Nunes, whose win is arguably going to fuel further talk of a massive Brazilian super fight against Cris Cyborg, it’s Pennington’s cornermen that have stolen the headlines for all of the wrong reasons.