Amanda Nunes Recalls Anxiety After Walking Away From MMA

Amanda Nunes returns to the Octagon this Saturday, but the road back started with a hard stretch outside it. In a new interview she described anxiety and a fear of depression after she quit fighting.

Nothing left to chase

Nunes spoke on the MightyCast podcast about the time after UFC 289. What caught her off guard was having nothing to chase. She said that until you retire you cannot know what it does to your feelings, because your whole life has been built around fighting.

She said she always had something to chase, and then one day it stopped. The anxiety followed, along with fear of becoming depressed. "I never prepared for life after fighting, and that's really dangerous," Nunes said. She added that nobody talks about it.

She needed something to focus on and a way to prepare for life after fighting. She also said she knows everything Dustin Poirier is going through, because she went through it too. The report does not say what Poirier is dealing with, so that comparison stays open.

A return years in the making

Retirement hit Nunes with a rare sense of lost purpose, the report says. "After you retire, you realize you don't really know yourself," she said.

The road to this fight was a mental battle, the report says, even though she had teased a return for years.

Nunes, a UFC Hall of Famer, faces women's bantamweight champion Kayla Harrison, a former teammate, in the UFC 334 main event. She has not fought since UFC 289, where she gave up the bantamweight belt.

Source: BJPenn.com