Julianna
Pena claims the winner of the upcoming title fight between
Raquel
Pennington and Mayra
Bueno Silva will only be “belt warming” until she returns to
action.
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Pennington (15-8) and Silva (10-2) will clash in the co-main event
at UFC 297 on Jan. 20 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto with the
vacant women’s bantamweight title on the line. For many, the
booking came as a slight surprise due to the absence of Pena
(11-5), who has been the only other woman besides Amanda
Nunes to sit on the 135-pound throne in recent years.
Pena famously submitted Nunes at UFC 269 in 2021 in one of the
greatest upsets in the history of the sport before losing the strap
via a lopsided decision in a rematch the following year. “The
Venezuelan Vixen” was then scheduled to face Nunes in a trilogy
clash at UFC 289 this past June but had to pull out due to an
undisclosed injury. “The Lioness” recorded yet another dominant
decision win over short-notice replacement Irene
Aldana before hanging up her gloves.
Pena revealed that she isn’t part of the upcoming UFC 297 title
fight because she has yet to completely recover from those
injuries. However, she sounds confident that her next fight will be
for the title against the winner of Pennington vs. Silva. Pena also
elected not to reveal any details regarding her injury due to the
nature of the sport.
“I’m sorry you guys are going to be force fed this horrible interim
title fight — it’s going to be interim because they’re belt warming
until I come back,” Pena recently said on “The
MMA Hour.” “Apologies that I can’t compete, but my next fight
will be for a title. Whoever wins between those two chicks, I’ll be
fighting the winner.”
“I know that everyone didn’t believe me when I said I had to fall
out when I was fighting Amanda [for the trilogy bout], but I
legitimately did have an injury and I’m still trying to heal from
that. I’m not trying to give out every single injury because you
have to keep a couple of cards close to the chest, but I am
injured. I won’t be back until summer.”