Amanda Nunes hoping for UFC women’s bantamweight title defense against Julianna Pena before December

Women’s MMA great Amanda Nunes is hoping for her next UFC women’s bantamweight title defense to come against Julianna Pena before December.

Nunes was supposed to fight Pena in the co-main event of last weekend’s UFC 265 pay-per-view card in Houston, Texas, but the champ was forced to withdraw the week before the fight after testing positive for COVID-19. Nunes’ wife Nina recently took to social media to confirm that their family is negative of the coronavirus, and that led to Pena publicly asking Dana White why the fight with Nunes can’t be rescheduled for an upcoming card.

Although Pena wants this fight to take place as soon as possible, it looks like she is going to have to wait several more months to get her hands on the champ. According to ESPN’s Marc Raimondi, Pena is now back at American Top Team Training, but she won’t be ready to fight anytime soon, as the latest timetable is a return to the Octagon before December.

UFC double champ Amanda Nunes has been cleared of COVID-19 and returned to the gym today, American Top Team owner Dan Lambert told ESPN. Nunes hopes to fight before December, per Lambert. UFC president Dana White maintained Saturday that Julianna Peña would be the challenger.

It appears to be quite a long wait for Nunes, but there are two main reasons for that. One, the UFC wants to make sure that she is fully healthy and prepared to defend her belt against Pena. And two, the UFC simply has no space on its upcoming pay-per-view cards (UFC 266, UFC 267, and UFC 268) to hold Nunes’ title defense, as the next batch of PPV cards have already been announced and they have multiple title fights booked for them.

Do you think December is too long of a wait for Amanda Nunes to fight Julianna Pena?