Raquel Pennington shares her sentiments about the much talked about fight between Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes.
More than a week ago, it was confirmed that UFC women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes will be defending her title for the third time against Raquel Pennington at UFC 224. But a few weeks before this matchup was finalized, talks were loud about a possible fight between Nunes and women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg.
UFC president Dana White even went as far as saying that he was thinking about scrapping the Nunes-Pennington billing to make way for the Cyborg fight. This had rightfully rubbed Pennington the wrong way, and she expressed all her feelings during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour.
“I have to admit I was frustrated with it and I started making calls right away because I don’t find that very fair at all,” Pennington said (via MMA Fighting). “I think I’ve definitely earned this spot and I think that fight deserved to be mine. So the fact that they’re just wanting to see a superfight really pissed me off, given the fact that Cyborg’s in a completely different division and then you’re trying to take the champion from our division and create this huge superfight.”
“You just want another girl with another name or two Brazilians? Like, what’s happening here? So there was a lot of frustration there, but it’s kind of one of those things that it’s not really in your control so why let it bother you so much?”
Pennington also echoed the sentiments of many regarding the current trend of matchmaking and “super-fights.”
“For me, it kind of feels like the worth is being taken away a little bit, I guess you can say, from the championship belts and stuff like that, just because so much stuff is being thrown around and sometimes it feels more of entertainment than it does for sport,” Pennington said.
“But at the end of the day, whatever’s bringing money in for them and like I said, there are some things that are out of your control and you’ve gotta just kind of go with the flow of it.”
UFC 224 is slated to take place on May 12th in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.