Julianna Pena broke her back carrying Amanda Nunes to UFC 289.
But unlike Jake Paul, who snapped his spine by lugging Hasim Rahman Jr. to the finish line for a fight that never came to fruition, “The Venezuelan Vixen” was able to avoid a trip to the hospital. Let’s just hope Doan’s back pills are not outlawed by USADA.
“I’m a star,” Pena told MMA Fighting (transcribed by MMA News). “You realize how bad my back hurts right now? My back is broken, okay, from carrying this fight and from making her relevant again after I beat her the first time. Like literally, my back hurts. We are, of course, going to be the main event. I’m carrying us all the way there, like I always do. It’s my homecoming, back in the Pacific Northwest. The Pacific Northwest fans are jacked and it couldn’t be [more] perfect. I demanded this fight be in my hometown and in my home area. I got what I wanted and it’s all over but the crime.”
Pena shocked the world with her second-round submission over Nunes in the UFC 269 pay-per-view (PPV) main event back in late 2021, but then failed to retain her title when the promotion granted an immediate rematch in the UFC 277 headliner last July.
Their rubber match tops UFC 289 on June 10 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.