If you are one of the few people that suffered through UFC 316 you probably already know that most of the card including and probably especially the women's main event was just quite boring. I suppose the Merab and O'Malley fight was ok, but it was just ok, not great.
The women's bantamweight title fight though, that didn't even look like a title fight and now after her 4th fight ever in the UFC we have a new champion with Kayla Harrison. She looks solid, she seems like she is well rounded, she seems like she actually could be something great for this division but then again, I said the same thing about Holly Holm only to watch her slowly but surely fade into obscurity and as time went by she was getting matches only because the fans like her and wanted to see her get another shock victory the likes of which she got over Ronda Rousey all those years ago.
But Julianna Pena? She was never a dominant champion. Pena has been champ twice, I'll give her that, but both times she failed to defend the belt even once and her taking of the belt seemed more like a fluke, even though it happened twice, and she was always a paper champion that was the underdog when defending OR going for the title, nobody actually thought she could win.
There was no point in time that Jules looked like she was on top of this fight and from what we have seen in the past from her she has no "play possum and then explode into an arm bar" sort of arsenal. She is a stand-up fighter who gets lucky shot in every now and then This is how she wins from time-to-time and the only reason why she was ever champ is because there simply isn't very many women fighters in UFC or any other promotion for that matter.
Pena did actually win the title from Amanda Nunes, who I don't think many people will argue is the greatest female fighter the UFC has ever had. However, there was a lot wrong with that fight with issues such as Nunes looking tanked early in the 1st and getting taken down too easily, then of course the whole being submitted by someone that normally doesn't even attempt submissions. While I was willing to let it pass as the fluke it clearly was, there was also some speculation about the fight being rigged...either for big underdog payouts at the bookies or because UFC needed fresh meat at the top since at that point Nunes was a dominant two-division champion that nobody really stood a chance against. Shortly after that "loss" Nunes quit UFC and retired... which also seemed kind of staged since it wasn't long before she said she was coming back and was also available for photo ops in this recent 316 event in New Jersey.
src
just a coincidence she was there, no doubt
Anyway, lets get back to what I started writing this about in the first place. Julianna Pena is not a good fighter. I would go so far as to say that she never was and just got good placement in the rankings because she is somewhat pretty and because she stuck around long enough and was willing to travel wherever to be in her bouts.
Her record, going back the 10 years I bothered to look at, is almost exclusively losses and her victories outside of the Nunes fluke are against people that you most likely have never heard of: McMann, Montano, Zingano (ok, I've heard of her), Eye, Dudieva, Rakoczy.... who are these people?
She did win the belt (the same run that she lost it on this time) from Rachel Pennington and if you haven't heard of her get in line, she has more losses than wins in the UFC and her career, which UFC doesn't showcase has wins against people with names even more obscure than her own.
The fact of the matter is that in the world of women's fighting, there just aren't that many names to throw around. There just isn't that much talent, this is the only reason why someone like Julianna Pena ever rises to the top. It seems if you just know the rules of the sport and can make weight UFC is like "yeah, go ahead and get in there, here's $20,000. thanks!"
The audacity, when the Nunes return fight starts getting talked about, when Pena suggests "I get the winner" is completely crazy. She is not a good fighter and to make matters worse she is now an OLD fighters as well. 35 is old for a man fighter but for a woman? to quote one of my favorite Italian statements: "fuggetabouit!"
src
my reaction when I heard Pena was demanding "first dibs" on the winner... if you get the reference we can be friends
I hope that Harrison and Nunes can be a good fight but Pena needs to go ahead and get the gloves ready to lie down in the octagon when she loses on the undercard, perhaps on the same night as the Nunes fight.
