Julianna Peña and Kayla Harrison both took care of business at UFC 307. But don’t assume that means their title fight is set in stone.
“The Venezuelan Vixen” recaptured the bantamweight title Saturday at UFC 307, with a close split-decision win over Raquel Pennington in the co-main event. Following her victory, Peña used her mic time to call for a trilogy bout with Amanda Nunes, not Harrison, the two-time Olympic champion and former PFL star who defeated Ketlen Vieira earlier in the evening.
The callout shouldn’t be all that surprising given that Peña was the only woman to defeat Nunes during the former two-division champion’s legendary run from 2015-2023, and even less so given how lightly Peña and her coaches regard Harrison.
“We’re not impressed,” Peña said of Harrison. “She said she was going to put an elbow through her skull and do all this damage. [Vieira] didn’t have a scratch on her, it was boring, and she didn’t do anything that jumped off the page like, ‘Oooh, The Boogeyman.’ You know what I mean? So I was definitely—especially with hearing from my team—not impressed.”
Peña admitted she was relying mostly on her coaches’ appraisal of Harrison as she was focused primarily on preparing for her own fight, but she was comfortable comparing Harrison to former UFC star Ronda Rousey. Harrison’s former Team USA judo teammate was a dominant force in the bantamweight division before bowing out of competition with consecutive losses Holly Holm and Nunes.
Harrison had to work hard to earn a decision over Vieira, and Peña believes that’s due to limitations in Harrison’s game.
“I definitely think that at some point or another, like Ronda, when you figure out the one-trick pony of being able to stuff a takedown, you realize that the fight is more competitive and more even than people want to give it credit for,” Peña said. “So I think once you stuff the takedown, you realize that you’re actually in a tougher fight than you thought you were, and I think that that’s kind of what played into her head tonight.”
Peña now continues her hunt for a third fight with Nunes, arguably the greatest woman to ever compete in MMA. The two competed in a pair of memorable bouts at UFC 269 and UFC 277, with Peña scoring a shocking upset in the first title fight and Nunes dominating the rematch to become champion again.
The rivals were scheduled to fight a third time at UFC 289 in June 2023, but Peña was forced to withdraw due to a rib injury and Nunes instead fought replacement Irene Aldana. After a lopsided decision win, Nunes announced her retirement from MMA.
“At the end of the day, when I saw Amanda retire that day in Canada, I was sitting cageside and I was booing and it was because I didn’t believe that she was truly done,” Peña said. “Then you hear Dana White saying, ‘I think she retired too early.’ Then you watch her and I feel like she’s just twiddling her thumbs wondering, ‘What is my identity? What am I doing? I’m bored. Who am I if I’m not fighting in the UFC?’ So there’s an air that I feel that she feels like she misses the sport, that she’s looking to find something that’s going to make her want to come back.
“Kayla never mentioned her name when she beat Holly Holm, and she sure is not mentioning her name now. None of the other girls were mentioning Amanda’s name that they considered the greatest of all-time, yet I was, and I never shied away from that, and I still am because I truly do not believe that she’s done. I think she retired too early. I think that she’s looking for something to do and that for me is the biggest fight in mixed martial arts history because we’re 1-1. My fight against her the first time was so dominant I made her tap; our second fight, I ran out of time, I lost a decision handily, fine, no problem, but it would be nice to put it to bed once and for all, and get that trilogy fight that I feel that she ran away from.”
To Harrison’s credit, she has called for a potential fight with Nunes on a number of occasions, despite the fact that they once trained together. However, on Saturday, Harrison only had one goal in mind, warning whoever won the co-main event, “Ladies, enjoy it while you can because the queen is home and she’s coming for that f*cking gold.”
Should Peña’s callout of Nunes fall flat, she welcomes the Harrison fight.
“If Amanda cowers away again, and does not come back and fight me, then yes, you’re absolutely right, Kayla brings a lot of eyeballs and a lot of attention to the sport, and I actually love that,” Peña said.
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