UFC bantamweight champion Julianna Pena doesn’t think a win in her upcoming fight will earn her any respect.
The two-time bantamweight champion is set to face Kayla Harrison at UFC 316, and she’s well aware that the odds are stacked against her. Pena has rarely received praise from fellow champions, despite her two-time victory and also defeating former champion Amanda Nunes.
“I thought beating the greatest of all time was going to give me that respect, and it didn’t, so you never know,” Pena said. “I say this often, but it’s so true—it’s never enough. It doesn’t matter what you do; it’s never enough. Everybody’s always going to want more from you.”
Although Pena has an impressive record, there’s no doubt her opponent, Harrison, is equally up to the task. Harrison’s credentials include being America’s first-ever gold medalist in judo—also the country’s first-ever two-time gold medalist in the sport—and a two-time PFL champion. She is 15-1 in MMA, with her lone loss being to Larissa Pacheco, an opponent she twice defeated before their most recent meeting. Despite these accomplishments, Peña remains unfazed.
“It was told to me that I’m a 6-to-1 underdog, and being a 6-to-1 underdog as a champion is very disrespectful, No. 1,” Pena said. “No. 2, everybody’s counting me out. Out of six people, only one of them thinks that I’m going to win the fight, and that is putting me in a position where, since you think I’m going to lose in five seconds and you think that I’m already out of this fight, then I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
“I’m obsessed with the process, not so much concerned about the outcome. I’m enjoying the process; I’m obsessed with enjoying the process. And when you put so much focus—She is in a position where ‘she has to’ and ‘she should’ and ‘you better’ and ‘it’s already done.’ Those are the kinds of limits that she’s putting on herself—‘you should’ and ‘you can’ and ‘you will’ and ‘you’re going to’ and ‘it’s already finished and it’s already happened.’
“The reality is that when you put that much pressure on yourself and you’re so focused on ‘you have to beat her in 10 seconds and it doesn’t happen,’ that can kind of play into your mentality and the way that you fight. Whereas everybody’s always counting me out. So when you put me in a position of nothing to lose and everything to gain, that makes me a very dangerous woman.”
Pena sees herself having way more paths to victory than the former PFL star.
“Well, if she says it’s going to be a brawl, then I guess I’ll give her what she wants,” Pena said. “No, I see the fight playing out with me getting my hand raised. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, I just know that I am very dangerous everywhere. I have multiple avenues to win this fight.
“I can win off of my back, I can win off of the cage, and I can win off of my feet. And having multiple avenues and multiple paths to victory is what makes me more dangerous, whereas she has only one shot to beat me, which is laying on top of me for 25 minutes.”
