Written by Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC
Julianna Peña is the UFC bantamweight champion. The one who will walk out second in Saturday’s co-main event. The one who has held UFC gold not once, but twice.
And yet, she can’t help but feel slightly disrespected heading into UFC 316.
Peña is just days away from defending her UFC title against Kayla Harrison at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., and she’s well aware that the odds are stacked against her. This isn’t the first time as “The Venezuelan Vixen” famously pulled off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history when she submitted the indomitable Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 to win her first title.
For whatever reason, Peña has rarely received the same acclaim as her fellow champions, and even if she defeats the favored Harrison, she doesn’t expect that to change.
“I thought beating the greatest of all time was going to give me that respect and it didn’t, so you never know,” Peña said. “I say this often, but it’s so true, it’s never enough. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s never enough. Everybody’s always going to want more from you.”
Peña’s momentous win over Nunes was immediately viewed in a less favorable light following their rematch at UFC 277, where Nunes won a lopsided unanimous decision to regain the bantamweight title. “The Lioness” has since retired, leaving the door open for Peña to claim a vacant title, which she successfully did at UFC 307 this past October with a narrow split decision win over Raquel Pennington.
Harrison’s credentials include being America’s first-ever gold medalist in judo—also the country’s first-ever two-time gold medalist in the sport—and a two-time PFL champion. She is 15-1 in MMA, with her lone loss being to Larissa Pacheco, an opponent she twice defeated before their most recent meeting. With wins over Holly Holm and Ketlen Vieira rounding out her résumé, Harrison is a massive favorite ahead of Saturday’s co-main event.
That doesn’t bother Peña in the slightest.
“It was told to me that I’m a 6-to-1 underdog and being a 6-to-1 underdog as a champion is very disrespectful, No. 1,” Peña said. “No. 2, everybody’s counting me out. Out of six people, only one of them thinks that I’m going to win the fight and that is putting me in a position where since you think I’m going to lose in five seconds and you think that I’m already out of this fight, then I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“I’m obsessed with the process, not so much concerned about the outcome. I’m enjoying the process, I’m obsessed with enjoying the process, and when you put so much focus-She is in a position where ‘she has to’ and ‘she should’ and ‘you better’ and ‘it’s already done.’ Those are the kinds limits that she’s putting on herself of ‘you should’ and ‘you can’ and ‘you will’ and ‘you’re going to’ and ‘it’s already finished and it’s already happened.’ The reality is is that when you put that much pressure on yourself and you’re so focused on ‘you have to beat her in 10 seconds and it doesn’t happen,’ that can kind of play into your mentality and the way that you fight, whereas everybody’s always counting me out. So when you put me in a position of nothing to lose and everything to gain, that makes me a very dangerous woman.”
Peña defeated Nunes by outlasting her before finding a rear-naked choke in Round 2 and while she’s not predicting Harrison to fall in similar fashion, she sees herself having way more paths to victory than the former PFL star.
“Well, if she says it’s going to be brawl, then I guess I’ll give her what she wants,” Peña said. “No, I see the fight playing out with me getting my hand raised. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I just know that I am very dangerous everywhere. I have multiple avenues to win this fight.
“I can win off of my back, I can win off of the cage, and I can win off of my feet, and having multiple avenues and multiple paths to victory is what makes me more dangerous, whereas she has only one shot to beat me, which is laying on top of me for 25 minutes.”