Amanda Nunes won’t fight Saturday night at UFC 213 because of an illness, but doctors had OK’d the women’s bantamweight champion to face Valentina Shevchenko in Las Vegas, UFC president Dana White told the Los Angeles Times’ Lance Pugmire.
“The doctor cleared her to fight. She said she doesn’t feel good,” White said in a text message to Pugmire. “It is what it is. You can’t make anyone fight.”
White’s admission backs a TMZ report that doctors looked at Nunes on Friday and Saturday “but found nothing wrong.” However, MMAFighting.com’s Ariel Helwani, who broke the story of Nunes’ illness, said the champ indeed was sick and even visited the hospital.
If Nunes indeed was cleared to fight but chose not to, it could be a bad look for her — especially when contrasted with Joanna Jedrzejczyk’s willingness to fight Shevchenko on just hours’ notice. White told Pugmire that Jedrzejczyk’s offer was “gangster” — something the UFC president certainly wouldn’t equate with Nunes right now.
