Julia Budd vs Amanda Nunes set for Jan. 7 Strikeforce show

Amanda Nunes

Last night Strikeforce announced the card for the Jan. 7 Challengers show in Nashville. This will be broadcast live on Showtime and on SuperChannel in Canada. And I think Showtime is running a free preview that weekend. In a women's match contracted for 145lb, Julia Budd will face Amanda Nunes. Of course Julia made her pro MMA debut on the Oct. 22 Strikeforce show with an impressive win over Shana Olsen. But she's a Muay Thai veteran with a 10-1 record including a win over Gina Carano. She's from Port Moody, BC and trains at Gibson Kickboxing & Pankration owned by retired MMA fighter Lance Gibson. Though the average fan may not be familiar with Amanda Nunes, readers of this blog should already be familiar with her as I have written about her before and posted video of her latest match. Amanda is from Salvador, Brazil and trains at Team Edson Carvalho. Her record is 5-1 and her last fight was a very impressive win over Ediane Gomes at the Feb. 25 Bitteti Combat show in Brasilia, Brazil. This will be her US debut. She is currently training at Team Carvalho in Paterson, NJ and is scheduled to remain in the US until February. She was supposed to fight Amanda Buckner in Feb. at the debut Girl Fight Global show. But Amanda had to bow out due to knee surgery and that promotion has rescheduled their debut to April. Both fighters like to bang so I expect it to remain standing. But Amanda has shown great improvement in her jiu jitsu skills in recent matches. Julia has a significant size advantage but Amanda's power should be a good test for her. And Amanda is a tweener. She could fight at either 135 or 145. I like her better at 135. It could be a very good match. Here's the match video of Amanda Nunes vs Ediane Gomes.