UFC Women’s Bantamweight Champion Julianna Peña believes commentary “bias” has played a part in the negative reaction to her title win earlier this month.
Peña returned to the mountaintop at 135 pounds in the co-main event of the UFC 307 pay-per-view in Salt Lake City, outpointing longtime rival Raquel Pennington on two of the three judges’ scorecards.
The result, which came over two years on from “The Venezuelan Vixen’s” first reign being brought to an end by Amanda Nunes, caused considerable debate.
On MMA Decisions, 25 out of 27 media members scored the five-round contest in favor of Pennington. That sentiment was also shared by 78 percent of over 500 fan scorecards that were submitted.
The newly crowned queen has been left bemused by the post-fight ‘robbery’ narratives, and she seemingly placed blame on the commentary team during an appearance on the debut episode of The Ariel Helwani Show on Uncrowned.
Peña branded the commentary “garbage” while reiterating the reasons why she’s confident that four of the five rounds were won by her.
“When you throw less and land more, when you’re giving the other girl a bloody nose and a goose egg on her head, when you’re taking her down, when you’re frickin’ making her eyes get as big as plates because you’re hitting her so hard and rocking her sh*t…you can’t tell me that I lost the fight,” Peña said. “I won that fight, and I’m so sick of all these people trying to like, make me feel like I didn’t win.
“Rewatch the fight without all the commentary bias and you will see clearly that I won that fight,” Peña continued. “Obviously all of the frickin’ MMA media hates my guts. … Every single one of them scored it against me. They need to go rewatch it without all that frickin’ garbage commentary and look at the significant strikes. I threw less and I landed more and they were harder shots. Rewatch it, please!”
Alongside the controversy regarding the scoring, the other major topic to emerge from Peña’s title win is the next step in the bantamweight division.
While Kayla Harrison’s victory over Ketlen Vieira on the UFC 307 card has left her as the consensus number one contender, “The Venezuelan Vixen” seemingly has other plans, frequently looking to entice Amanda Nunes back to complete their trilogy instead.
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