Tornado fights and demanding grooming

Hi all, I’ve done a few bonding sessions with my buns and they seem to be going the same way, starting with tornado style fighting and at some point they will put their heads down together to demand grooming which neither are giving so I’ve been grooming them everytime they do this.
Mainly my female rabbit is aggressive and my male curls up in a ball and freezes.
Because the female sometimes launches into the tornado fighting from time to time I’m struggling to not break it up when she launches at him to do things like nipping him. He just sits there and takes it.
Problem is I’m getting nervous about it now as I’m scared of him getting hurt but I know they have to sort out their pecking order, I’m concerned about how aggressive she is.
Both have been neutered for a while and I’ve been bonding them in a large dog cage.
Has anyone had a similar experience with their pair when bonding and was it successful?

Bump

Hi! I’ve had somewhat of a similar experience. When bonding, my female was very dominant and quite aggressive over my male (nipping/launching for him, especially in larger spaces) and the male would just take it and never retaliate like yours it seems. I found that moving them into a smaller space reduced this by a lot. Often excessive fighting is a sign you’ve moved too fast in bonding (ie. given them to much space). A large dog pen (although seems small to you) may be too much at this stage and therefore I’d recommend that you go back and reduce the space they are having again, (eg: use a washing basket/half a bathtub etc) and then move up gradually in the space you give them, but only once the fighting is minimal/reduced. The female is probably just trying to assert dominance, and this should reduce when they have established their dominance hierarchy. But your situation seems very similar to mine and my bunnies are now happily bonded as free roam house rabbits. Hope it works out for you!