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Julianna
Pena continues to level shots at Amanda
Nunes in the hopes of a trilogy clash.

Pena captured the bantamweight title with a shocking upset
submission win over Nunes in their first encounter at UFC 269.
Nunes regained her strap with a lopsided unanimous decision over
Pena in their rematch at UFC 277 the next year. While they were
slated to meet in a rubber match at UFC 289 in 2023, Pena had to
pull out due to an injury. Nunes went on to beat short-notice
replacement Irene
Aldana via unanimous decision and hung up her gloves.

While recovering from her injury, Pena has consistently tried to
coax Nunes out of retirement in the hopes of a trilogy clash.
Meanwhile, Raquel
Pennington won the vacant title with a unanimous decision over
Mayra
Bueno Silva at UFC 297 this past January. Pena received a gold
bid against “Rocky” at UFC 307
on Oct. 5, and “The Venezuelan Vixen” went on to dethrone
Pennington via a controversial split decision. Pennington defeated
Pena on the scorecards of Verdict MMA, which is a popular public polling
website.

Meanwhile, top contender Kayla Harrision defeated Ketlen
Vieira via unanimous decision in a title eliminator at UFC 307.
However, Pena has been insistent on a potential trilogy clash
against Nunes instead of fighting the two-time Olympic gold
medalist. The bantamweight champ now claims that she has been told
that Nunes is willing to come out of retirement to fight the winner
of potential clash between her and Harrison. But Pena believes
Nunes is hoping that Harrison beats her. According to Pena, Nunes
has realized in their two outings that no amount of money is worth
the damage she’ll potentially sustain in a trilogy.

“They give me a call, they say, ‘She [Nunes] wants to face he
winner of you vs. Kayla [Harrison].’ And so she will come back, but
she’s waiting to fight the winner,” Pena told Ariel Helwani. “So,
she thinks I’m gonna lose to Kayla. And when I beat Kayla then
she’s gonna say, ‘I stay retired.’ But if Kayla wins, then she’s
gonna come out of retirement and look like some hero… She feels
that she doesn’t have anything to prove against me. And she feels
that she hates Kayla more than she does want to prove something and
fight me for a trilogy.

“First fight I took her pride, second fight I took her soul. And
she walked out of there with freaking elephantids on half her face,
crutches and a wheelchair. She knows that it’s not gonna be some
walk in the park, easy night in the office… No amount of money that
they pay her is gonna be worth the amount of damage that she’s
going to have to sustain in this fight. Because I’m not going away.
And she knows that.”

IMAK ADMIN

By IMAK ADMIN

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