Julianna Peña became two-time women’s bantamweight champion at UFC 307 last October, winning back the title from Raquel Pennington in a controversial decision.
On June 7, at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.,Peña (12-5) puts her title on the line in the UFC 316 co-main event against Kayla Harrison (18-1). Despite being the champion, Peña will enter the fight a sizable underdog.
“It’s just this constant reign of disrespect everywhere I go. It’s just like the such is my life, and that’s okay because nothing makes me happier, nothing brings me more joy than to ruin people’s nights, to prove everybody wrong,” Peña said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “I’m just being put in a position again of needing to silence everyone. And if anybody has that ability, it’s me.”
“I know what I’m capable of doing. I know who I am as a fighter, and knowing the work and the mat time that I’ve put in give me all the confidence in the world that I could literally fight anybody, so come on girl. She’s in for a long night at the office either way you split it.”
An Olympic gold medalist in Judo, Harrison has been subject to anti-doping drug testing for decades. She always shows up in incredible condition and Peña questioned whether Harrison’s physique is natural.
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“At this point, the drug testing is like the Wild, Wild West. It’s like, pee in a plastic cup that has absolutely no security on it and do what you gotta do. Even in the Olympics with the Russians being able to tamper with those USADA-like unbreakable-type of bottles and be able to switch the pee in them,” said Peña.
“Eventually, everything you do in the dark comes to the light. And I can not confirm 110-percent whether she is, or she is not on PEDs. But I will say, back then, in the Olympics, she looked like a girl, very feminine. Now she looks super juicy and like cut up. Somebody give that girl a band-aid because she’s cut. It doesn’t just happen overnight because you touched the weights a little bit.
“I want to say what everybody is thinking on their minds, which is that, of course at some point she was on steroids. Hopefully she cycles off of them before June 7th, makes weight and pisses clean,” Peña continued.
