“I was like, ‘Dude, you’re breaking my heart, man. Like, I freaking love you. Like, seriously.”
As one of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s biggest fans, Julianna Pena was heartbroken to hear ‘The Eagle’ downplay her shock upset victory over Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 and discredit WMMA as a whole.
Nurmagomedov, who is widely considered to be one of the greatest pound-for-pound fighters of all time, commented on Pena’s win over Nunes after being asked about the possibility of women ever competing in his own MMA promotion, Eagle FC.
“I am like, we can watch what Julianna Peña did with Amanda Nunes [at UFC 269]. But Julianna Peña, she is not like the greatest or something like that. She just beat Amanda Nunes like [on the day]. We can watch not many good [female] fighters all around the world. There are only like five or six of them,” Nurmagomedov said at a press conference in December (h/t Clyde Aidoo of MMA News).
Pena didn’t appreciate Khabib’s comments but is still a huge fan of the lightweight GOAT.
“I saw in a presser that they asked [Khabib] a question and he was just completely downgrading the whole win and everything like that….it totally broke my heart…” Peña said on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “I was like, ‘Dude, you’re breaking my heart, man. Like, I freaking love you. Like, seriously.”
“He must be friends with Kayla Harrison or something. I don’t know. Because he was like, [MOCK KHABIB ACCENT] ‘If this is the top of women’s division, it’s a joke,” she added. “I mean, it wasn’t very nice. I didn’t appreciate it, Khabib.”
Pena beat Nunes via second-round rear-naked choke to become the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion and land a spot in the top-five UFC women’s pound-for-pound rankings. ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ is expected to rematch Nunes sometime later this year, with a possible stint on The Ultimate Fighter leading up to the fight.