Nunes says Rousey 'never said my name' as she prepares to end three-year retirement at UFC 334

Amanda Nunes says Ronda Rousey has never once acknowledged their UFC 207 encounter, dismissing any notion of a rematch as the two-division legend prepares to end a three-year retirement against bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison in the co-main event of UFC 334 at Madison Square Garden in New York this Saturday.

“Ronda, to this day, she doesn’t acknowledge I fought her,” Nunes told the MIGHTYcast. “She never say one word, she never say my name one time in her whole entire life. So they never called me.”

Nunes retired after a 14-1 run that included a 48-second knockout of Rousey at UFC 207 in December 2016, along with lengthy title reigns at both bantamweight and featherweight. Rousey herself returned to competition in 2026 after a near-decade away, defeating Gina Carano at the inaugural MVP MMA event this past May — a fight Nunes watched as a fan.

“I think it was great for women’s MMA,” Nunes said. “It was huge. Ronda has a lot of fans, a lot more people that like her than hate her. For Gina, we have Gina from back in the day — it was amazing seeing her fight. But I feel like Gina was so long out, she comes back to fight Ronda, I feel like she was not always that powerful just because Gina was out for so long and had problems.”

A fight outside the UFC was never seriously on the table for Nunes, who was already committed to the Harrison bout. The two former training partners were originally scheduled to meet at UFC 324 in January, but Harrison was forced to withdraw for neck surgery, pushing the contest back several months.

Nunes also addressed her women’s MMA Mount Rushmore, having recently named herself, Valentina Shevchenko, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, and Zhang Weili on the Deep Waters podcast — conspicuously leaving out Rousey and Cris Cyborg. She was quick to clarify there was no slight intended.

“Honestly, I can put them there, too,” she said. “When I say those things, if I had more spots, I would have put them, too. I feel like Ronda, Cyborg’s in that — I cannot pick four.”

On her own motivation for returning, Nunes was unambiguous about where her loyalties lie. “I’m UFC all the way. This was my dream, and I want to fight in the UFC. The UFC belt is the belt. This is the belt for me. I don’t want to have any other belt on my wall — that is the belt I always chase and I’m going to get a brand new one soon.”