Cris Cyborg says she picked Julianna Peña to beat Amanda Nunes

MMA fans around the world have long since debated who the real WMMA GOAT is. Many say Amanda Nunes and many say Cris “Cyborg” Justino. Now Julianna Peña’s name has been thrown in the mix following her submission of the previous two-division champion.

Now Justino has weighed in, downplaying the greatness of Nunes (who she lost to in the first round) and building up Peña.

“You know, I was not surprised,” Justino said in an interview with Combat Sports on Fanatics View. “I (picked) Julianna Peña because the five losses for Amanda Nunes, four were the same style as Julianna Peña. Before my fight with Nunes, we knew Amanda Nunes’ danger is in the beginning, in the first round. If you pass the first round with her, you can get in the fight.”

Peña defeated Nunes in the later rounds after clearly losing the first round.

“We knew this,” Justino said. “Of course, when you fight her, you go fire to fire and that happens, you know, what happened. We knew that when she goes past the first round, she sees she cannot finish you, so she’s either going to run away or quit on the floor or something, and this is what happened with Julianna Peña.”

Justino has been calling for a rematch with Nunes since their fight and even lost her UFC spot over it. She’s gone on to win five times since losing to Nunes and holds the Bellator featherweight title at the moment.

“I don’t feel like Julianna did any submission because she didn’t have a submission the way she finished the fight,” Cyborg said. “I feel like Amanda Nunes at one point, she sees she cannot finish and Julianna Peña continued going forward and she tapped. But (Peña) didn’t have any submission. I don’t know what was passing through her mind in the second round because when you’re going to fight for the title, you’re ready for seven rounds, and that was the second.