UFC 224: The best and worst

#2 Worst: Amanda Nunes just doesn’t have star power

Despite her dominance, Amanda Nunes struggles to engage the fans

After her win over Raquel Pennington on Saturday, it seems like everyone is finally convinced that Amanda Nunes is the most dominant fighter in the Women’s Bantamweight division since Ronda Rousey’s heyday of 2013-15.

The only problem? Despite all of her dominance, nobody seems to care about Nunes and her fights. If anything, the closest parallel to ‘The Lioness’ would be another dominant champion who’s struggled to inspire the fans, Demetrious Johnson.

In a world where looks and appeal sell so much, it simply appears that Nunes lacks the basic tools to really get the fans to care.

She’s an exciting fighter with a massively aggressive style, but it’s been proven so many times that it doesn’t matter so much what you do in the cage, it’s what you do outside it that makes the fans want to see your fights. And being largely soft-spoken, Nunes just doesn’t sell herself enough.

Could the UFC do more to push her as a Superstar? Quite possibly. Saturday’s fight was the first UFC title fight between two openly gay fighters, and yet the angle was never really pushed by the promotion, who could’ve used it to bring a newer audience to the product.

And UFC president Dana White has thrown Nunes under the bus before too after she withdrew from last year’s UFC 214 on late notice.

We’ve seen fighters grow in stardom before. Anderson Silva comes to mind, but it just seems like Nunes is facing a huge uphill struggle to become a fighter the fans really want to see. Perhaps booking the often-rumoured fight with Cris Cyborg could help?