It was just a matter of time before Julianna Pena started making excuses.
‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ suffered a dominant submission loss against Kayla Harrison at UFC 316 earlier this month, surrendering her bantamweight world title in the process.
While Pena was seemingly humble in defeat, sharing a long embrace with Harrison immediately following their scrap, the two-time titleholder is now alleging that she was dealing with “several injuries” heading into the fight that severely impacted the quality of her camp.
“I was plagued with several injuries heading into that fight. It wasn’t a good camp for me in that sense, because I knew that I was going into the fight with a pretty severe handicap,” Peña said during an appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show.
“It crossed my mind [to withdraw] but it wasn’t bad enough to the point where I would have to not fight, because I knew I was going to be able to push through. But it’s a funny thing that my coaches didn’t explain the severity of the situation to me, otherwise I would’ve thought more heavily on not competing. I don’t regret competing, I put in too much time and I’ve taken away too much time from other people, my daughter, my coaches, and their families. So I don’t regret competing, I just wish I could’ve competed under better circumstances.”
Julianna Pena reveals the details of her pre-fight injuries
Though she was initially vague on the details, Pena opened up about the injuries that she sustained while training for the two-time Olympic gold medalist.
“Second week of May, I broke my thumb on my training partner, and it was swollen, looked like someone hit me in the hand with a hammer. It was really difficult to grip, and it still is really difficult,” Peña said. “Then I took a really bad fall in the Octagon and I tore my elbow, broke off a ton of bone chips so that I wasn’t able to straighten my arm or bend my arm fully.
“It was so swollen and the MRI and X-Rays showed a tear and a lot of bone chips in the back of that, so going into a fight 10 days out, it’s just excruciating and it’s very painful, hard to throw a punch and extend.”
Pena also confirmed that the arm Harrison used to submit her in the second round was the same one she compromised whilst training. As a result, that could put ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ on the shelf for the foreseeable future, though no timeline for her return was offered or alluded to.
