Julianna Peña does not seem intimidated at all by the deep martial arts pedigree of her next opponent Kayla Harrison as we are all now immersed in fight week proceedings. Peña will aim to make the first defense of her second reign with the UFC bantamweight belt when she takes on multi-time Olympc judo gold medalist and former PFL champion, Kayla Harrison. This battle for the 135 pound crown will take place in the co-main event attraction for UFC 316 which is set for Saturday, June 7th in Newark, New Jersey.
The reigning women’s bantamweight champion took part in an interview with Submission Radio and when addressing how much her opponent is a highly rated favorite heading into the cage this weekend, Julianna Peña said.
“They got me as, you know, another underdog situation where everybody just thinks I’m an absolute wash—and that’s kind of how they’ve had me my entire career. For me, I’m more concerned about the process than the outcome. When everybody thinks that you’re a walkover, when they don’t want to give you any respect, when they all think that you’re just going to die in there and get killed in 10 seconds—I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. That makes me a very dangerous woman.”
“Maybe because I don’t have the perfect rock ’em, sock ’em robot punches. Or maybe because I don’t have two gold medals in judo or a silver medal in wrestling. I’m very—maybe what they would consider—unorthodox. But the thing that always carries me through is that unwavering belief that I have in myself, a faith of: I don’t care who you are, what your accolades are, or what you’ve done—you are going to remember the day that you faced the Peña power.”
Julianna Peña and her history with shocking upsets
Julianna Peña is a sizable betting underdog heading into this Kayla Harrison fight which is a familiar narrative for the current UFC champion as she mentioned in the quote above. It seems like many are forgetting that ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ pulled off one of the bigegst upsets in the history of the sport when Peña unseated Amanda Nunes from her bantamweight throne. Julianna Peña submitted Nunes via rear naked choke at UFC 269 to shock the world with the latter eventually regaining the title from the former at UFC 277 when Nunes won on points.
