Nina Nunes Moves to Flyweight to Take On Cynthia Calvillo at July 9 UFC Card

Per sources, Cynthia Calvillo vs. Nina Nunes is booked for July 9. It will be at flyweight, a 125-pound debut for Nunes in the UFC. pic.twitter.com/gLvstIOofn

— Brett Okamoto (@bokamotoESPN) April 14, 2022

A notable Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight is changing her mind on moving back down to strawweight after all.

Per the UFC’s broadcast partner of ESPN on Thursday, Nina Nunes (10-7) will be moving up 10 pounds to flyweight, where she will face fellow strawweight ex-pat Cynthia Calvillo (9-4-1). Calvillo was previously booked against Brianna Fortino, but the latter was forced out of their 115-pound affair for undisclosed reasons, stemming from a report by Alex Behunin in March. Instead of remaining on that June 4 card at strawweight, she will stay at flyweight at the UFC Fight Night event on July 9, roughly one month later.

Nunes has not gotten her hand raised since 2018, when she took home a decision over ex-title challenger Claudia Gadelha. A pair of defeats to top contenders Tatiana Suarez and Mackenzie Dern blunted her momentum towards the top of the division, and she also took time off to have a daughter with current UFC featherweight champ Amanda Nunes. Her return came against Dern, and she succumbed to an armbar at the end of Round 1. Before falling short to Suarez, Nunes had rattled off four victories over the likes of Angela Hill, Randa Markos and Gadelha.

Often struggling to make weight for the 115-pound class, Calvillo officially moved to flyweight in 2020, where her opponent Jessica Eye then missed weight. The win over Eye is the lone victory in four UFC appearances at the division, with three consecutive defeats to Katlyn Chookagian, Jessica Andrade and Andrea Lee – the latter two by stoppage – have sent her tumbling down the 125-pound rankings. Initially signed at 3-0 as a pro, Calvillo surged into the promotion’s roster by submitting Amanda Bobby Brundage and Pearl Gonzalez, but a later outing against Carla Esparza ended her undefeated record back in 2017. This will be Nunes' first fight at 125 pounds since a flyweight clash in 2013 under the Invicta Fighting Championships banner.

Calvillo vs. Nunes is currently the highest-ranked fight on the July 9 UFC Fight Night card thus far, but it only consists of three matchups as of now. Ronnie Lawrence will battle Saidyokub Kakhramonov in the bantamweight division earlier on the lineup. Additionally, the flyweight bout between Antonina Shevchenko and Cortney Casey has been bumped from April 30 to this event due to a Shevchenko injury, with Shevchenko announcing this on her social media on Thursday and MMA Fighting reporting the new date.