Julianna Pena is set to compete in an expected title eliminator against Valentina Shevchenko on Jan. 28. The two will share the Octagon in the main event of UFC on FOX in Denver, Colorado.
While “The Venezuelan Vixen” is on the cusp of a big title opportunity, she wasn’t shy about turning her attention to the once dominant women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey. She went on “Toe-2-Toe with Brian Stann” (via MMAFighting.com) to express her disappointment in not facing “Rowdy:”
“It just sucks that Ronda’s been dodging me this whole time. When I was on The Ultimate Fighter and Dana allowed women to fight in the UFC, she was fighting one girl while I fought four girls in seven weeks. The reason why they don’t count those fights as real is because it would be illegal. It would be absolutely illegal to allow that many fights in that short amount of time.”
During her time on The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) season 18, Pena bested Rousey’s team to win the tournament. She feels that fact alone should’ve pushed her to a bout with “Rowdy.”
“The thing that drives me crazy is that I took out her whole team. She should’ve wanted to fight me in vengeance for her team right after I beat every member on her team. I dismantled all of them. It drives me crazy that it wasn’t me that was able to do it and it drives me crazy that she’s been dodging me this whole time and that I wasn’t the one to be able to dethrone her. To show everyone that this girl’s been spoiled. She’s been handpicking her fights from day one. She’s been getting everything handed to her because her name is Ronda Rousey and she’s been brought up to be this glorious god that was untouchable and it just drives me crazy that I wasn’t able to be the one to dethrone her from the beginning.”
