Raquel Pennington has been through any number of trials and tribulations on her way back to the octagon at UFC Denver this Saturday.
Denver, CO — Needless to say, Raquel Pennington has had a tough go of things inside and outside of the cage of late. Earlier this year, of course, there was the heartbreaking and difficult loss to Amanda Nunes at UFC 224, with the UFC women’s bantamweight title on the line. That happened to re-aggravate a leg injury in her surgically repaired left leg, something Pennington touched on at Wednesday’s UFC Denver open workouts.
At Thursday’s media day for the UFC’s 25th Anniversary event, Pennington touched on another health issue, hypothyroidism, and the struggle she’s had getting back to the octagon.
Asked if thoughts of calling it a career ever crossed her mind, ‘Rocky’ said that “I think at some point, every fighter kinda goes through a lot of emotions when it comes to it. I’ve come across just, all my friends in the sport, and then Tecia [Torres, Pennington’s partner] — we’ll sit there and talk about different things.”
Pennington also pointed out that “being a female fighter, the toll it takes on our bodies, the hormones and everything, it gets harder. So there’s a lot of questions that come into play.” Retirement, and the physical price paid among them no doubt. “I remember when I first started this sport, it was fun, it was super challenging, the weight cuts were just ‘ahh, let’s get this done.’ It was just something new,” she said. “Now, that [weight cutting] seriously is the hardest part. For me, getting the hypothyroidism now and stuff like that, I really didn’t realize how much of an effect it would take.”
Especially when the body fails to cooperate. “It’s hard. It’s tough. I actually started this fight camp at 170, unwillingly,” she explained. “I do everything I could possibly do, I stay in shape. I’ve had a lot of people come to me and ask me if I’ve ever considered going down to 125. And it’s just like, I have the Mexi-roll, is what I like to call it and stuff, but with how hard I train, I should actually be like a walking anatomy chart.”
Pennington explained that when those sorts of issues come into play, she does question her time in the sport. “But I feel like I’ve still got some strength in there to keep doing it, so I just keep grinding it out, but we’ll see.”
Pennington confirmed she’s on medication for the condition. But what she needs is to fine tune the combination of her meds, weight, and weight cutting.
On the rigors of the past couple years, Pennington later added that “it was just a big toll when it came to it, because for one, I went from being on this big streak, and then I had to take a break, to going into surgeries, which was a huge traumatizing toll for the human body in general.” Making matters worse, “right after that, it was like one thing after another, then hypothyroidism, and then trying to do more weight cuts. It’s a lot. It is a real struggle.”
That struggle will pay off when she makes the walk to the octagon at UFC Denver this weekend. Pennington faces Germaine de Randamie on the main card, which airs live on FOX Sports 1.
