UFC 259 Predictions: Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson breakdown, picks
Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson is the co-main event of UFC 259 which takes place Saturday, March 6.
Ant Walker, Drake Riggs, and Matthew Wells have revealed their Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson predictions ahead of the upcoming UFC Women’s Featherweight Championship fight.
Stunningly, Drake has picked Megan Anderson to defeat Amanda Nunes to win by first-round knockout. If that doesn’t happen, Drake has promised to get a tattoo of a goat on him. Watch our full predictions video.
Amanda Nunes has won 11 fights in a row with 8 consecutive wins in UFC title fights. Nunes is in the process of clearing out both the women’s bantamweight division and the much smaller women’s featherweight division with recent wins against Felicia Spencer (FW), Germaine de Randamie (BW), Holly Holm (BW), and Cris Cyborg (FW). Nunes (20-4) has 13 career wins by KO/TKO, 3 by submission, and 4 via decision.
Megan Anderson has emerged as the next-best contender for Nunes’ featherweight title after consecutive wins against Norma Dumont and Zarah Fairn. Anderson (10-3) has just one decision win to her name with 6 victories by way of KO/TKO and 3 by submission.
Nunes vs. Anderson betting odds
Anderson steps into this fight as a +750 betting underdog. Nunes can be found at odds of -1100.
- Amanda Nunes: -1100
- Megan Anderson: +750
Nunes vs. Anderson predictions
Watch our full Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson predictions video here.
Ant
“I don’t see that [Anderson winning] as a possibility here and it’s more so just looking at the X’s and O’s. One thing about Megan Anderson — she is definitely a good boxer. She’s very nice with her hands. She can piece somebody up and she can put some lights out. I was there for when she knocked out Charmaine Tweet and it was pretty violent. She’s very, very good.
“However, she’s also quite the defensive liability. She is someone who takes too many punches and especially for somebody who consistently has a reach advantage — I think in this fight she’ll have a three-and-a-half reach advantage. She typically has the height advantage. For someone who has that length, she gets touched up way too often. With Amanda Nunes, you cannot give up your chin like that. You simply cannot. Even if Megan can take a shot and clearly she can because we haven’t seen her unconscious on the octagon floor, but man I think we’re going to see it this time. Unless her defense is drastically improved, I think that a couple of touches from Nunes and things are going to start getting a little wobbly for her.
“Her grappling can really fall prey to Nunes. We think about her as this knockout machine, but she’s a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and I believe she’s a black belt in Judo as well. We just saw her out-wrestle GDR for the most part. She was on the ground with Felicia Spencer and handle everything she had with complete ease. When you’re going to be forced to stand with this devastating striker, it’s just going to be a matter of time. It’s going to be a matter of when Nunes wants to get out of there. I’d be very surprised if it makes it out of the second round.”
– picking Amanda Nunes to win
Drake
“It’s going to have to be Megan Anderson winning… A win for her will come in the first or second round, I think. Her strength is her striking. She’s very good at striking. We’ve seen these new wrinkles and improvements in her grappling but not against the level of grappler that Amanda Nunes is or anybody of that sort. Megan’s best chance here I believe would be to be aggressive, really get in Nunes’ face as quickly as possible to try and make her uncomfortable but at the same time, she can’t be overly aggressive and get taken down potentially because that’s where she does not want the fight to go. Despite her improvements, Amanda Nunes is continually… I don’t want to say forgotten about in terms of her great grappling, but people still think of her as this monster who is knocking people out on the feet. It does happen, that’s just how good she is everywhere.
“With all that being said, I just have a feeling and I’m going to put it into existence… Megan Anderson gets the knockout, the upset over Amanda Nunes, and if she does not I’ll get a tattoo of a goat on me.”
– picking Megan Anderson to win
Matt
“Outside of a freak left-hand out of nowhere from hell while Amanda is just piecing her up, I just don’t see it happening. MMA math is something that we shouldn’t trust or anything like that but when one fighter has run the gauntlet to the tune of being considered the GOAT in two women’s divisions and then on the other end we have someone who lost to Cindy Dandois, we’re not talking about the same thing here. I know that loss was 5-6 years ago and she’s obviously gotten a lot better since then.
“Her most recent two losses were against competitors that Amanda Nunes kind of handled with relative ease. Felicia Spencer took her to the end of the fight but I think that was more so Amanda Nunes wanting to get some time in there because she’s been having short fights for the most part besides the Germaine de Randamie fight. She needs someone who can go in there and hang with her and I don’t know if Megan Anderson is that competitor.”
– picking Amanda Nunes to win
Who do you think will win Amanda Nunes vs. Megan Anderson? Let us know in the comments!
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