Athletes
Raquel Pennington Finally Gets Her Fight
Champion Traces History With Julianna Peña Before TUF 18 Alums Meet At UFC 307
Raquel Pennington has been waiting more than 11 years to share the Octagon with Julianna Peña, and this weekend, at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, the two will finally face off, with the women’s bantamweight title hanging in the balance.
“This is a fight that wasn’t just an eight-week camp for me — this is a fight that has been on my mind for 11 years,” the champion said about the matchup with Pena, the former champion who will be competing for the first time since losing the title at UFC 277 in the summer of 2022.
Order UFC 307: Pereira vs Rountree Jr.
The duo was part of the historic 18th season of The Ultimate Fighter, an instalment coached by bitter rivals Ronda Rousey and Miesha Tate that marked the first time female athletes competed on the long-running reality TV competition.
Heading into the house, both landed on Team Tate, which led to them being roommates. After each turned in impressive performances in their opening round matchups — Pena submitting veteran Shayna Baszler, Pennington out-working Jessamyn Duke in a bout that would end up being selected as Fight of the Season — most expected that they would meet in the finals, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“Dana thought we were gonna match up in the finale,” began Pennington when asked to explain the origin of her tensions with Pena. “She won the season, I won Fight of the Season, and during that fight, I sustained a broken hand, fractured forearm, and some stitches, then had to fight a week-and-a-half later.
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“I went into the house and I didn’t know Julianna. There were a few athletes that I knew of them, but I didn’t know them. I wasn’t raised to bully people, so when I went into the house and this girl (Pena) was getting bullied, I was like, ‘Damn, this is jacked up.’ We ended up on the same team, we were roommates, and I was like, ‘I’m gonna try to befriend you,’ and I quickly learned about our different personalities.
“When you’re living with somebody — everybody is under constant stress, and you’re living, breathing, eating, sleeping, doing what you’re dreaming of, there’s a lot of emotions going on in the house,” the champion added with a smile. “On top of that, I felt she had a lack of respect for my space, and it was just little things that added up over time.
“So it’s one of those types of things.”
But this isn’t just some long-standing grudge cobbled together from annoyances and irritations of being cooped up in a house together that she’s been toting around for the last decade; it’s also just a fight that Pennington has been chasing since their time on The Ultimate Fighter, and given that they’ve both been on the roster for quite literally the exact same amount of time, it is somewhat surprising that their paths have never crossed before.
“It’s a fight I’ve wanted for a long time and I don’t understand how it hasn’t happened,” said Pennington, shaking her head. “I always asked, and she was either injured or didn’t want to fight me.
"It just never made sense to me,” she added. “I was always like, ‘Make her sign on the damn line! I want this fight!’”
Looking at the course each other their careers has taken since arriving in the UFC in November 2013, the reality is that they were never really at the same point at the same time until now. The closest they got was in 2016, when Pena posted a unanimous decision win over Cat Zingano at UFC 200 and Pennington did the same against Tate at UFC 205 in New York City, which extended her winning streak to four and put her in line to fight for the title.
By the time she returned from the horrific leg injury that delayed her first championship opportunity, Pena had already momentarily pressed pause on her career to have her first child. When she came back, “The Venezuelan Vixen” quickly worked her way into title contention, with Pennington a half-step behind her.
But over the last year and change, an eventual showdown between the two has felt inevitable, a five-fight winning streak carried Pennington back into the championship mix and Pena held an express pass to a title pairing after an injury forced her out of her trilogy bout with Amanda Nunes at UFC 289.
With Pena still unable to go in January, Pennington ventured to Toronto and faced Mayra Bueno Silva for the vacant title, beating the favored Brazilian over five rounds to ascend to the top of the division.
And now, this weekend, they will finally share the Octagon and settle things, with the victor walking out as the women’s bantamweight champion.
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“It’s just exciting for it to actually happen, but I’m also the type of person where this is just competition,” said Pennington, who has never been one to get drawn into social media squabbles or engage in trash talking. “At the end of the day, she can run her mouth — we all know she’s gonna run her mouth; I don’t think she ever gets sick of hearing herself talk — but I’m gonna get my hand raised, defend my title successfully, and then shake her hand…or at least try.”
When she won the title in January, Pennington looked overwhelmed by the moment as the title was being wrapped around her waist and UFC broadcaster Daniel Cormier entered the Octagon to interview her.
In actuality, the newly minted champion was frustrated — she’d had a nightmare week in Toronto, was horribly sick throughout the day of the fight, and was disappointed, because after years of hard work, she’d finally reached the top of the mountain, but she got there with a performance she wasn’t particularly happy with.
“This is not how I wanted to win this world title,” she told me in May when we spoke about that post-fight moment. “Everybody was like, ‘You were in shock!’ and I was like, ‘I was disappointed. It was a lot to absorb.”
Eight months removed from that frosty and irritating week in Toronto, Pennington has a better outlook on things, at least when it comes to where she stands at the moment, and the journey it has been to get there.
“Listen, to make it simple: I am genuinely, genuinely proud of myself,” she said, beaming. “I was never handed a single thing. I have always worked from the bottom up and always been the underdog, and to be where I’m at, achieving things for myself as an athlete, as a person, changing my family’s life, building a legacy that I have for myself that I get to pass on to my daughter; I am just so proud of myself.
“When you get into fighting, the ultimate goal is to get into the UFC and stay in the UFC. I’ve been in the UFC now for 11 years; that’s not something easy to do. On top of that, I’ve fought the best of the best. The next goal is that we all want to be world champion, so we’re already the top one percent of people that do this stuff, and to break down who actually fights for a world title, most athletes don’t ever get that opportunity.
“Some athletes — hell, I was one of them: I fought for the world title the first time and I failed,” she added, referencing her UFC 224 loss at the hands of Nunes in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s not an easy journey.
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“To go out there and look back at my journey, break down everything, it’s like, ‘Damn, I’m proud of myself.’ I’m a Colorado girl and I love the mountains, but I genuinely use that as an example all the time because I’ve climbed a lot of mountains.”
This weekend in Salt Lake City, nestled between the Wasatch Range to the east and the Oquirrh Mountains to the west, the champion puts her title on the line for the first time, against a challenger she’s been itching to face for nearly as long as the division she sits atop has existed in the UFC.
Full Fight | Raquel Pennington vs Mayra Bueno Silva
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Full Fight | Raquel Pennington vs Mayra Bueno Silva
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“Oh my God! Oh man! I am so excited!” She said when asked about finally being able to get her hands on Pena on Saturday night, barely able to contain her energy. “There’s been a couple times throughout this camp where I’ve been so excited, so motivated, but there have also been times where — s***, I’ve been grinding, I’m tired, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want to do this cardio.’
“Tecia (Pennington, her wife) knows how to fire me up, so she’ll send me a picture of Julianna, and s***, I’m running a damn marathon.”
Pennington couldn’t help but laugh, the reality that just the sight of her UFC 307 foe is enough to get her out the door, doing roadwork impossible not to enjoy.
“Needless to say, I’m excited,” she added with a smile. “It’s been a long 11 years in the making and here we are. It’s gonna be a great freakin’ night.”
UFC 307: Pereira vs Rountree Jr., took place live from Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 5, 2024. See the final Prelim & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC FIGHT PASS!