The tweet, along with others in the following days, gained traction with hardcore fans and those who believed Zingano deserved the shot. But Nunez was announced as Tate’s opponent, and then a few weeks later Zingano’s return was made official with a tweet from the UFC announcing her bout against Pena.

“The UFC isn’t about deserving, it’s about earning,” Zingano said in an interview on The MMA Hour podcast in April. She had to earn her way up to that Rousey fight more than a year ago, and it appears she’ll have to follow that same uphill road toward another shot at the belt.

BIG CHANGE

With her body and her mind ready, and her next opponent named, Zingano needed to buckle down and begin her first fight camp in more than a year. However, where exactly that camp would occur became a question.

Zingano has lived in Colorado for most of her adult life, and she has been a prominent member of Elevation Fight Team in Denver. But she felt she needed to switch something up — get some new voices in her corner as she entered the next chapter of her career.

“I’d been looking hard for where I wanted to be. I’d been all over the world seeing where the lightbulb goes off,” Zingano said last week.