While scientists will debate whether animals can smell fear, Amanda Nunes swears that she can. Reigning champ of the UFC’s bantamweight and featherweight divisions, Nunes, 31, will arrive at pre-fight press conferences and weigh-ins, face her opponents and then note that the air grows dense with trepidation. “I can tell right away,” says Nunes. “They do not want to be fighting me. Sometimes I can, like, even [sense] why they don’t want to fight me.”
Valid reasons are manifold. Nunes is been a one-woman threshing machine, mowing down the field. On the last week of 2016, Nunes first pierced the general sports consciousness when she mauled Ronda Rousey, sending Rousey into retirement—or off to the WWE, anyway.