Julianna Peña has explained why she did not talk trash to Amanda Nunes during the filming of The Ultimate Fighter 30.
Prior to the UFC 269 women’s bantamweight championship match between Julianna Peña and Amanda Nunes, both the MMA community and Nunes took notice of just how confident Peña was going into the match. It was hard not to notice, with Peña’s mouth constantly running at full speed.
“The Venezuelan Vixen” stated that Nunes was terrified of the match, implied that she lied about contracting the coronavirus to stall it, and also criticized Nunes as an athlete, particularly her cardio.
Peña would tell you that none of what she said was trash talk and that she was merely telling the truth as she saw it. Either way, however you would categorize the rhetoric, Nunes recently wondered why there wasn’t more of it during the filming of the 30th season of The Ultimate Fighter.
“Since Julianna was talking a lot, being the trash talker she is, I thought she would really bring that to TUF, but it didn’t go as I expected,” Nunes told MMA Fighting.
“She was cool, completely different from who she really is. I don’t know if she was faking it because it would air on TV and she doesn’t want bad publicity. She’s too much, and everything’s full of Julianna already – imagine if she’s the way she [really] is on TUF. I think it wouldn’t be good for her, so I think she held back a little bit.”
“I don’t know if she was used to seeing me all the time and that’s why she pumped the brakes on that stuff,” Nunes said. “I even told her, ‘Don’t you talk online? I’m in front of you now, open your mouth.’ But it was cool. [Normally] I don’t talk too much but I asked her, ‘What’s up?’ That’s what TUF is all about, it’s a reality [show] and people want drama.
“I even tried to poke her a little bit to see if I could get something out of her but didn’t get much. … I didn’t understand much of it. I really expected something completely different than what she was on the show.”
Peña Explains The Lack Of TUF Talk
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Peña opened up on why she opted to bite her tongue in the current season of The Ultimate Fighter.
“It’s a loaded question. And there’s a lot of points that I want to hit. First and foremost, I would like to say that she said that, you know, I was talking online and that I was trash talking leading up to the fight and that she was expecting me to trash talk more. But if you go back, everything that I said was true. Everything that I said leading up to the fight is exactly what I I did. I said what I was going to do, and then I actually did it.
“So, to me, that’s not talking trash. That’s talking facts. That’s truth. That actually happened. If I said that she gets winded when she walks up a flight of stairs – that’s a fact, that’s not me talking trash. I mean, the girl gets winded. You see that in her fights.
“Another truth that I mentioned was that she was a champion in a division of “who?” Name three flyweights in the featherweight division. Name two, aside from Amanda. You can’t. Holly [Holm] and Germaine [de Randamie] both said that they’re true 135-ers. Megan Anderson retired. Cris Cyborg doesn’t fight in the UFC. I can’t wrack my brain for who she’s a champion of in a division that’s doesn’t even have a ranking one to 10.
“So again, that’s not me talking trash that is stating a fact. And then I saw in the article, she agreed with me. She agreed and she said that, you know, there isn’t any investment in the featherweight division, and the UFC needs to step it up and do that. So it’s like, am I talking trash? Or am I telling the truth? Because you’re agreeing with what I’m saying.”
Peña would conclude her lengthy address by pinpointing why she did not trash-talk Nunes during the show. According to the champion, it’s because she pities her bantamweight rival.
“The other point that I wanted to say is, you know, it was brought to my attention through the UFC that she had to go get a sports psychologist, and that her mind was all messed up and that things weren’t clicking in the fight [at UFC 269]. And, you know, her knees were bad. And coming from somebody that’s had all sorts of things happen to me in my career – I feel bad for the poor girl. You want me to continue to talk? I already won the belt. I did my talking by winning.
“What more do you want me to say? What? You want me to burn the church down, too? Honestly, like, I just, I feel bad for her. She fired her whole team, she had to go see a sports psychologist, she had to go get stuff under wraps so that nobody could know what was going on. She lost her belt. She’s never been tapped. She hadn’t lost in seven years. Like, I feel bad. I already won, and that was enough, you know? I’m not the type to continually pour salt on the wounds. It’s just not my style.”
“Furthermore, and my last point, I see the world a little bit differently now that I’m on top of the world. I’m on top of the mountain. My job is to make sure that I’m hitting all of my obligations, that I’m meeting all these media obligations, that I’m hitting on my training obligations, and that I stay at the top of the mountain and kick everyone off that’s trying to climb up it. That’s my job. So, I don’t have time to respond to every little thing that everyone’s going to say to me. My job is to just make sure that I stay at the top of the mountain and that’s my focus.”
Julianna Peña will look to perform that job next month at UFC 277 in Dallas, Texas in the main event against Amanda Nunes. Here, “The Venezuelan Vixen” will look to once again back up her initial talk dating back to last year while silencing any lingering doubts from the audience and any potential rebuttals from “The Lioness.”
Enjoyed reading this article? Share it on social media along with your thoughts on who will win the UFC 277 main event between Julianna Peña and Amanda Nunes!
Continue Reading Peña Explains Not Trash-Talking On TUF, “I Feel Bad For The Poor Girl” at MMA News.