The one lady to defeat Kayla Harrison in combined martial arts helps to organize Amanda Nunes for struggle.
Nunes, arguably the best feminine MMA fighter too ever compete, will come out of retirement to face her former teammate and champion Harrison within the UFC 324 co-main occasion on Jan. 24, 2026.
Pacheco, who fought Harrison 3 times, is providing a serving to hand to Nunes.
“What I can say is that if the UFC needs to guide this struggle subsequent week or subsequent month for Amanda, she’s prepared,” Pacheco informed MMA Preventing. “She’s prepared. When it comes to changes, the whole lot, there’s nothing extra to say. I’m not going to speak technique as a result of I can’t, however she’s prepared, man. What I’ve felt from her… I can say this: I’ve felt Kayla’s power earlier than, and now I’ve felt Amanda’s. She’s prepared. That struggle is hers, definitely. She’s strolling out with the win.”
The primary two fights between Pacheco and Harrison occurred in 2019, with Harrison profitable each through determination to finish that yr as PFL champion and 7-0 within the sport. They’d meet for a 3rd time in November 2022, and Pacheco walked away with the choice victory — and the PFL belt.
Nunes retired from MMA after beating Irene Aldana in June 2023.
“She by no means actually misplaced that throne. Her starvation is to win,” Pacheco stated of Nunes. “She didn’t have an actual problem left, one which matched her degree. She beat everybody. When she retired, it was at a time when she didn’t have a real problem anymore. It felt like, ‘I’m doing this only for the cash.’ A minimum of that’s how I see it; it’s not one thing she informed me instantly.
“However since there’s one thing private between them, it provides a special taste, proper? And now Kayla is the champion of the promotion. She stated in a number of interviews that she wished to be UFC champion, that she wished to struggle Amanda, that she wished to get there, and now she’s there. Didn’t she need this to occur so badly? Didn’t she ask for it a lot? That is the second.”
“I don’t assume there’s a greater time for Amanda to come back again than now, than this,” she continued. “And to do it on this approach, displaying not solely who she is — that she doesn’t must show something to anybody —, however doing it in opposition to somebody who actually is a problem worthy of her.”
