Amanda Nunes

Amanda Nunes (born May 30, 1988) is a Brazilian retired professional mixed martial artist.

She competed in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), where she is the former UFC Women's Featherweight Champion and two-time UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion.

She was ranked #1 in the UFC women's pound-for-pound rankings at the time of her retirement.

Widely regarded as the greatest female mixed martial artist of all time, Nunes is the first woman to become a two-division UFC champion, and the third fighter to hold UFC titles in two weight classes simultaneously, after Conor McGregor and Daniel Cormier.

Nunes was born on May 30, 1988, in Pojuca, a small town outside of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

She has two older sisters.

After her parents split up when she was four, Nunes and her sisters remained with their mother.

To support the family as a single parent, her mom sold hot dogs, sweets and beauty products alongside her regular job as a school administrative assistant.

According to Nunes, her father initially did not support her fighting career, but has since changed course.

Nunes has described her mother, as a loving but strict parent.

She encouraged Amanda to get involved with sports as a way to deal with her excess energy.

Nunes initially aspired to become a professional soccer player, starting out in elementary school as a player on the local Pojuca team and later on the Salvador team.

Eventually, she got the opportunity to try out for the Vitória football club, but was unable to accept due to her mother wanting her to focus on studies instead.

Nunes's uncle, was a Vale Tudo fighter.

Her mother, who herself regularly trained boxing, cornered him during his fights.

Nunes first attended capoeira classes at age five, after her school teacher complained that she was too hyperactive in class.

She started learning karate at age seven.

"My mother used to box, and I followed her footsteps into training. She loves fighting. My uncle used to fight Vale Tudo, and my mother even cornered him in some of his fights. She always says, ‘the first strike has to be yours. She can’t touch you before you touch her. You have to intimidate her.’"

At the age of 16, following her sister Vanessa's invitation to a dojo, she began training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

At this time, she also got involved with boxing.

Despite being the only woman at the gym, she soon started dominating her training partners in sparring.

After she had defeated all of her opposition, at age 17, she moved to Salvador to train at the Edson Carvalho academy under the tutelage of his brother, Ricardo Carvalho.

There, she also started training in judo.

She lived at an apartment with her sister, but because it was too far away from the gym, she accepted her coach's offer to move there.

Because she was the only girl, and because the logo of the academy are two lions, her coach and other students started calling her "Leoa" (lioness in Portuguese), a nickname she still uses.

"I slept on the mat, I woke up at about 4:30 am to clean the whole gym with the coach. There were some other athletes who lived in the gym as well, but there was only me as a woman. We woke up very early to leave the gym clean for the first jiu-jitsu class, which started at 6 am. I used to live there, so why not help the coach? That is also a part of fighter's life. [...] Today, when I look back, I think it was very worthwhile to go through all of this. I really liked living at the gym, because it was facing Porto da Barra, facing the sea, so I trained, took a shower, went for a walk on the shore, stayed there. It was perfect for me."

Nunes soon started competing in BJJ tournaments.

Nunes started training MMA in 2007 at Edson Carvalho's gym.

After moving to the US, she lived in New Jersey and trained at AMA Fight Club before moving to Miami to train at MMA Masters.

She is currently training at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, Florida.

Her coaches are Conan Silveira (MMA), Phil Daru (S&C), and Jose Rojas (asst. S&C)

Among her biggest accomplishments in this sport are gold medal at the Pan American Jiu-Jitsu Championship in 2008 as a blue belt, gold medal at World Jiu-Jitsu Championship in 2009 as a purple belt and becoming a world champion of the North American Grappling Association (NAGA) in the lightweight and absolute divisions in 2012.

She currently holds a black belt in BJJ and a brown belt in judo.

Nunes made her professional debut on March 8, 2008, at Prime MMA Championship 2.

She faced Ana Maria and was defeated by armbar submission in the first round.

Nunes had won five straight fights, all by knockout prior to making her Strikeforce debut on January 7, 2011, at Strikeforce Challengers: Woodley vs. Saffiedine in Nashville, Tennessee.

She defeated Canadian Julia Budd by knockout in just 14 seconds.

Nunes was scheduled to fight Julie Kedzie at Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum on June 18, 2011, in Dallas, Texas.

The bout was cancelled after Nunes sustained a foot injury.

Nunes fought Alexis Davis on September 10, 2011, at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov.