On Saturday, Amanda Nunes will return from retirement to face Kayla Harrison for the bantamweight championship in the UFC 334 co-main event. The battle is one of the most exciting and anticipated fights in women's mixed martial arts history.
Nunes battled her way to being considered the greatest female fighter ever before retiring as bantamweight champion in 2023 after defeating basically every notable name available, including every woman to ever hold the UFC bantamweight and featherweight titles.
In Nunes' absence, Harrison has become champion, bringing Olympic wrestling bona fides to the championship level.
This long-discussed fight joins a still young history of highly-anticipated women's mixed martial arts fights.
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With that in mind, we took a look to the past to determine 10 of the most anticipated fights in women's MMA history, based on how excited fans were to see the bouts, the importance of the fight at the time and the larger impact of the bouts.
Let's take a look at that list, presented in chronological order, as we prepare for UFC 334 and Harrison vs. Nunes.
August 2009 -- Gina Carano vs. Cris Cyborg (Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg)
Carano was the first big women's MMA star in America, with movie-star looks to go along with skills that allowed her to win the first seven fights of her pro career, five in the Strikeforce and EliteXC cages. In Cyborg, Carano was taking on a very dangerous opponent in a Brazilian powerhouse who ripped through her competition. The fight was the first time a major MMA promotion headlined a card with a fight between women. Cyborg took less than one round to finish Carano, ending Carano's professional career until her 2026 return for a one-off fight with Ronda Rousey on an MVP MMA card, which could have made the list on the attention it gathered had it not featured two women who had long since retired and played out as something of an absolute farce.
March 2012 -- Miesha Tate vs. Ronda Rousey (Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey)
Rousey was a star on the rise and she had a perfect rival in Tate. After starting her career at 145 pounds, Rousey dropped to bantamweight to take on Tate, with whom she'd built something of a rivalry despite not being in the same division. Tate had become champion by winning a one-night, four-woman tournament and successfully defended against tough veteran Marloes Coenen. Despite all of Tate's accomplishments, she was no match for Tate's grappling and fell to an armbar in the first round.
February 2013 -- Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche (UFC 157)
Dana White had famously said that women would never fight in the UFC Octagon. Rousey was the woman who changed his mind, and after becoming the first woman signed to the UFC, Rousey was put in a headliner for her promotional debut. Carmouche was a tough and respected fighter, and she even threatened to submit Rousey early, but ultimately, Rousey made a statement on her biggest platform to date, scoring her seventh first-round armbar in the first seven fights of her career.
December 2013 -- Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate 2 (UFC 168)
Rousey was such a big star at her peak that it's not a surprise to see her on the list as much as she is. Tate was her biggest rival, and the UFC built on that existing rivalry by putting the pair as opposing coaches on "The Ultimate Fighter." Tate had been stopped by Cat Zingano in her previous fight, but Zingano suffered an injury and Tate was put in her place. Tate managed to be the first woman to take Rousey past the opening round, but ultimately fell to a Rousey armbar for the second time.
November 2015 -- Ronda Rousey vs. Holly Holm (UFC 193)
UFC 193 was held at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, which drew the biggest crowd in UFC history at the time. There was the standard hype for a Rousey fight, with a sprinkling of trash talk and Holm's championship boxing background adding a bit of extra spice. Rousey had run through her first six opponents in the Octagon and was expected to do so again in front of a stadium crowd. Instead, Holm dominated Rousey on the feet before delivering a brutal headkick knockout for one of the most shocking upsets in UFC history.
July 2016 -- Miesha Tate vs. Amanda Nunes (UFC 200)
As expected, UFC 200 was a huge event, but a series of late changes to the card led to Tate vs. Nunes headlining the landmark event. Tate rattled off five wins after her second loss to Rousey, culminating in beating Holm to win the bantamweight title. Tate wouldn't hold onto the title for long because she ran into Nunes, who would go on to unseat Rousey as the women's "G.O.A.T." Nunes ran through Tate to claim the title in the main event of one of the UFC's biggest events ever, and kicked off a legendary run.
December 2016 -- Amanda Nunes vs. Ronda Rousey (UFC 207)
Nunes won the belt by defeating Tate, but she cemented her place atop the division when she faced Rousey in Rousey's first fight since the loss to Holm. It took less than one minute for Nunes to blitz Rousey with punches to score the TKO, officially ending the Rousey era and making the statement that this was truly the Nunes era. That the UFC 207 poster prominently featured the words "She's back" in text nearly as large as the fighters' faces to broadcast Rousey's return only proved that Nunes needed a dominant win to be the face of the division.
November 2017 -- Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs. Rose Namajunas (UFC 217)
Jedrzejczyk had made five successful defenses of the strawweight championship after winning it in March 2015. She became one of the most consistent and dominant champions in the UFC during that time. Namajunas lost her first UFC fight, when she faced Carla Esparza for the inaugural strawweight title in the finale of "The Ultimate Fighter." Despite that loss, she continued to grow and improve, and was given a second shot at the belt against Jedrzejczyk. Despite being a heavy underdog, Namajunas pulled off a big upset with a first-round TKO to win the belt on a card that was one of the most anticipated of the year and delivered on high expectations. Namajunas went on to prove the win was not a fluke by winning their immediate rematch.
December 2018 -- Amanda Nunes vs. Cris Cyborg (UFC 232)
Cyborg never got her long-sought-after fight with Rousey. Instead, she would have to settle for the woman who had taken over the mantle of the best woman in the sport. Nunes was seeking new glory, so she went up to face the featherweight champion in Cyborg, a woman who had won 20 fights since losing her professional debut. What figured to be a meeting of two of the best in history proved to be another epic moment for Nunes, as she managed to become a two-division champion by stopping Cyborg in just 51 seconds.
March 2020 -- Zhang Weili vs. Joanna Jedrzejczyk (UFC 248)
After defeating Jessica Andrade to win the strawweight champion, Weili looked like the future of the division. Jedrzejczyk had suffered back-to-back losses to Namajunas and also dropped a fight to Valentina Shevchenko, who is sadly missing from this list despite being one of the greatest women in the sport's history, but still got another shot at the belt after a win over Michelle Waterson. Two accomplished champions met in what is one of the greatest fights in the history of mixed martial arts. Weili got the win, and won the rematch, but the UFC 248 clash gave one last look at what a truly great fighter Jedrzejczyk was.
