Ronda Rousey Could Fight Amanda Nunes This Year?

We haven’t heard much from or about Ronda Rousey in the past few months. Her stunning loss to Holly Holm last November left her unable to eat apples nearly a month later. The duration of comparative silence has, anecdotally, been unprecedented since her initial rise.

Since Rousey’s loss, the women’s bantamweight title has been a bit of a hot potato. Holm dropped the belt to Miesha Tate in March, and then Amanda Nunes defeated Tate in July.

Now there are rumblings that Ronda Rousey’s return to the Octagon will be a match against Nunes, and that it could happen this year. Dana White gave an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Globo, which MMAFighting.com translated as saying White is “confident Rousey will return before the end of the year to fight Amanda Nunes for the bantamweight championship.”

White also talked about how everyone would love to see Rousey fight Cris Cyborg, but noted the challenges of matching the weights, and gave no specifics of how or when the fight could happen.

Sporting News followed up on the Rousey/Nunes aspect of the interview, reporting that sources told them if this indeed happens it would be at UFC 207 on December 30th in Las Vegas.

It would seem, from the outside, as though the timing is right for this to happen. There will be major stakes for Rousey in this fight. If she loses a second straight competition, her drawing power and overall persona as a dominant entity may never recover. If she wins, it will be a story of redemption, and, even though it would not be directly avenged, almost as though the loss to Holm never happened.