As you all know by now, Amanda Nunes pulled out of last night's title defense against Valentina Shevchenko. Since then, Amanda has been thrown under the bus by everyone including UFC president Dana White who has himself been accused of unprofessional behaviour in the past. One would think he would know better. He went so far as to say that he thought Amanda's withdrawal was 90% mental. He did say the fight is likely to be rescheduled to UFC 215 in Edmonton. I have a theory about why Amanda pulled out that I was going to write about anyway. But I now have an official explanation from American Top Team owner and head coach Conan Silveira. Silveira told UOL in Brazil that Amanda was suffering from a sinus infection, a sore throat and she wasn't sleeping properly. Amanda has suffered from sinus infections in the past. Silveira says the problems developed during the week and as White said, they considered pulling out before the ceremonial weigh ins. When Amanda's condition hadn't improved on Saturday morning, that's when they took her to the hospital. Silveira said this was a team decision made by himself, Amanda and coaches Mike Brown and Din Thomas. Of course there are two sides to this. There are those who claim that no fighter is 100% and most of them suck it up and fight anyway. And how many times have you watched a fight where the losing fighter didn't look right. Afterwards, we learn the fighter had the flu and sucked it up and regretted it. This happened to Amanda Nunes when she lost to Sarah D'Alelio on the Jan. 5, 2015 Invicta show. If you recall, she didn't look right during that fight. We found out later that she was ill and she probably shouldn't have fought. This was before she moved to ATT. So maybe she decided that in the future she would only fight if she was 100% healthy. Silveira says that if she's not 100% healthy, she doesn't have to take unnecessary risks. He says the camp went great. But she wasn't feeling well and she wasn't improving. The team decided to pull out. I see no indication that there were weight cut problems which was the kneejerk conclusion most jumped to. BTW, Amanda has never had problems cutting weight and I have covered her career since 2010. If she would have fought last night and lost, they have an excuse. We see enough of that nonsense already. Post match excuses drive me nuts. Look, I know Silveira's explanation isn't going to satisfy some. I would prefer that Amanda fought in perfect health so there are no excuses. So I'm OK with it. Reschedule the fight.
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