UFC bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington is excited to finally settle a long-standing score in her first title defence at UFC 307.
Pennington and Julianna Peña first met back on The Ultimate Fighter many years ago where they were roommates during their time on the series.
After growing to dislike one another, their paths somehow never crossed until this weekend in Salt Lake City.
Though the champion has her own issues with Peña, it would appear that she isn’t the only one.
Raquel Pennington Says Some People At The UFC Are Rooting Against Julianna Peña
In a recent interview with MMA Fighting, Pennington explained where some of her dislike of Peña comes from.
The champ believes that her opponent hasn’t always earned the opportunities that she has been given and casts doubts on her credentials.
As noted in the interview, the title challenger doesn’t have a win over anyone on the current roster because she’s been relatively inactive in recent years, aside from her fights with Amanda Nunes.
When Pennington spoke about how the UFC are always looking to put together the biggest fights, she mentioned that some people within the promotion are rooting against her opponent this weekend.
“I don’t understand how this girl can stay injured and then she comes back and all of a sudden she’s getting a big fight and then she’s injured and then she comes back and she’s getting something else and it’s like who’s managing you? Like what are you doing here? Whatever you’re doing, great, it’s working for you, congratulations, you had like whatever for yourself but it just doesn’t make sense to me and so I’m like alright. At the end of the day, UFC is going to do what UFC does and you know, I won’t say a name but some people in UFC have said like, ‘Hey, everybody loves watching Julianna get her a** beat for five rounds’, so why not?”
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