UFC News & FeaturesUFC Women’s Bantamweight Championship
#8 P4P | Raquel Pennington (16-8, 13-5 UFC) vs. #5 P4P | Julianna Pena (11-5, 7-3 UFC)ODDS: Pennington (-162), Pena (+136)
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The UFC women’s bantamweight division is still struggling to find its footing after the retirement of Amanda Nunes, but this fight should hopefully help get some momentum going. Pennington won the vacant title with a win over Mayra Bueno Silva in January, and while “Rocky” might not be the most exciting fighter, the result was an impressive culmination of over a decade of hard work. Pennington fought a tough level of competition prior to her UFC debut, leading to a well-deserved reputation as being much better than her record. That held true even through her first handful of fights in the UFC. Pennington still won her fair share of bouts, but losses to Jessica Andrade and Holly Holm were each split decisions that easily could’ve gone her way. Eventually, Pennington was able to string together four straight wins to put herself in the contender mix at the end of 2016, though she wound up barely avoiding tragedy shortly thereafter. Pennington was expected to receive a title shot but instead spent a year and a half out of action after nearly losing her leg in an ATV accident. Surprisingly, an immediate title shot was waiting for Pennington upon her recovery, which might not have been the best news, given that the ensuing fight against Nunes was an extended beating that only made it to the fifth round thanks to the challenger’s toughness. Pennington’s next fight, an uninspiring loss to Germaine de Randamie, suggested that some combination of injuries and the Nunes encounter had drained the Colorado Springs native of her effectiveness, but she eventually bounced back to a surprising degree. She should probably be undefeated in the eight fights since the de Randamie bout, with her only loss coming via another controversial split decision against Holm. It’s hard to say there’s a singular standout performance among Pennington’s current six-fight winning streak, but her strength has always been her consistency, which has come through even in those individual fights. Her title win against Bueno Silva was a clear example of that, with the Brazilian burning herself out after some early success while Pennington just chugged along for five steady rounds. Kayla Harrison is lurking—both as a future contender and in a fight earlier on this card—but for now, Pennington has to defend her belt against Pena, settling some business from their season of “The Ultimate Fighter” 11 years ago.
A former bantamweight champion in her own right, Pena’s had one of the more baffling UFC careers of the last decade. Pena won that season of “The Ultimate Fighter” and figured to quickly march up the bantamweight division, only to have her career immediately derailed thanks to a massive knee injury. “The Venezuelan Vixen” looked solid upon her return, swamping opponents with her aggressive wrestling and grappling game up until the point that she fell into a Valentina Shevchenko armbar in 2017, suffering her first UFC loss. From there, Pena went from potential title contender to non-factor over the next few years. Pregnancy and more injuries kept Pena out of action more often than not, and her results were inconsistent and included a submission loss to de Randamie—a frankly unthinkable result for a standout grappler against a seemingly one-dimensional kickboxer. Within a year of the de Randamie loss, Pena had rebounded with a win over Sara McMann and suddenly found herself as Nunes’ top contender. Nunes didn’t exactly have much in the way of fresh contenders lined up, and Pena had talked enough trash to seemingly set herself up as a speed bump for the two-division champion. Instead, Pena wound up authoring what’s still one of the unlikeliest upsets in mixed martial arts history. Nunes dominated the fight for a round before suddenly tiring out and imploding, allowing Pena to take over and score a submission in the second round. The win is an achievement that Pena will always have, though it’s hard to say she’s had much momentum in the three years since. The rematch was a one-sided win for Nunes where Pena accomplished little, and yet another injury layoff took her out of a scheduled trilogy fight that now looks unlikely to happen due to the Brazilian’s retirement. Pena seems convinced she can lure Nunes out of retirement once she wins the title back, and it’s a coinflip as to whether or not step one of that plan will come to fruition. Pena’s always had an impressive level of commitment to simply trying to make things happen in her fights, but Pennington, for her part, has always been surprisingly stout and difficult for opponents to control. This fight figures to turn out as a fairly ugly affair. Both women are at their best once their opponents hit their breaking points, but they’ve also each made a career out of refusing to break and not going away. The lean is that Pennington can stall her challenger out more often than not. The pick is Pennington via decision.
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Pennington vs. Pena
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The Prelims
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