Las Vegas, NV — If it were up to Raquel Pennington, she would already have faced Julianna Pena for the now-vacant UFC women’s bantamweight championship.
Of course, that may be a little soon. Amanda Nunes retired just last month after defeating Irene Aldana at UFC 289, vacating both her 135 and 145 pound titles in the process. Pena, Nunes’ chief rival of late, is the obvious choice to fight Pennington next, but is still healing up from a rib injury.
“It should have been yesterday, but I guess I’ll wait until I get the call from UFC,” Pennington told Cageside Press ahead of the 2023 UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Thursday. “For me, I’m hoping maybe around November, December timeframe— [that] would be the perfect timeframe. Give me time to enjoy the family, and then get into a solid fight camp.”
Pena, who had been scheduled to face Nunes for the third time until injury yanked her from the UFC 289 card in Vancouver, appeared to go ballistic when her rival called it a career. She’s been lobbing trash talk in the former fighter’s direction ever since, trying to lure “The Lioness” back to competition.
“I feel like Julianna needs to find a way to make herself relevant,” Pennington said when asked about that approach. “She sat there and she upset the world and she won the world title, and then Amanda came back and put on an extremely dominating performance. And then she did everything to get the third shot, and there was a lot of people saying love her or hate her, people love watching her get her ass beat for five rounds.”
Their UFC 289 fight was to be the rubber match in that series, tied 1-1. ” I feel like that was just all part of it. Amanda sat here and she’s moving on with her life and doing other things, and I don’t think Julianna liked that idea.”
“I’ve never understood trash talking, I’m not a trash talker,” Pennington, currently on a five-fight win streak, added. “I feel like if you step into the octagon it’s going to speak for itself. I just feel like that was her way of making herself relevant.”
Asked if she was surprised by the increase in vitriol by Pena, Pennington stated that the uptick in trash talk was no shock.
“No, it hasn’t surprised me. I feel like people are just seeing Julianna for who she is; I feel like she’s also playing a part. Like I said, I feel like she’s trying to make herself relevant, and the world loves the sh*t talking, so I feel like she’s dragging that out. For me, it just kind of comes as a very obnoxious way [to do things], but whatever.”
