Newly-crowned UFC women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena, who stripped the strap from Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 last weekend in Las Vegas, wants you to believe that her skill, determination, and fortitude are what led to the fall of “Lioness.”
The bookies are not convinced.
That’s probably why the Brazilian opened as a whopping -500 favorite to win their 135-pound rematch, according to Draft Kings. “The Venezuelan Vixen,” meanwhile, will limp into their championship do-over — which is expected to take place in early 2022 — as the +400 underdog.
“She’s a fighter that doesn’t do well when she’s fighting against adversity,” Pena told The MMA Hour. “When she’s the bully and she’s the pressure, she’s great – girls fold, they crumple. But when she is being bullied and when she is being pressured, that’s what she can’t handle, and that’s what I knew was the case.”
“You saw that when she was fighting Cat Zingano; Cat Zingano broke her, and I think maybe in Invicta I saw somebody else break her, too,” Pena continued. “She’s had losses. Those types of scenarios I knew still existed in her, and it just needed a chance to break through and rear its ugly head, and the only way to do that is to get somebody tired and make them work and make them fight.”
Despite the odds, it’s up to Nunes to prove otherwise.