Spokane UFC competitor Julianna Pena seeks biggest opportunity

HOUSTON – Julianna Pena’s road to a fight that could lead to an Ultimate Fighting Championship title shot has been a long one with a major bump along the way. 

Pena, a Spokane native who trains with the likes of fellow UFC fighters Michael Chiesa and Sam Sicilia, won the first all-female season of the long-running UFC reality competition “The Ultimate Fighter.” But a training accident in January 2014 left her right knee thrashed. It took her more than a year to return, coming back in April with a decisive knockout win.   

After the lengthy rehab and recovery, one would think Pena (6-2, 2-0 UFC) might be extra anxious to get back in the cage on Saturday, when she opens up the pay-per-view main card of UFC 192 against Jessica Eye (11-3, 1-2 UFC). But at 26, Pena may feel like she’s in this for the long haul. 

“I feel like it’s important for me to take the time off that I need,” Pena said Thursday at a UFC media day at Toyota Center in Houston, which hosts Saturday’s card. “I’ll just fight when they want me to fight. I’ve been ready. It’s not that I don’t want to fight, it’s just that I’ve been waiting for them to tell me when I’m going to fight. In the meantime, I get to rest my body and I get to evolve as a fighter. It might seem like a long layoff for other people, but I think it’s the perfect amount of time.”

On Saturday, though, Pena’s fight could wind up being the most important of her career so far. The MMA world – and really the sports world in general – has been transfixed on UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey (12-0, 6-0 UFC), an unbeaten Olympic bronze medalist who has become arguably the biggest crossover star in the sport’s history. 

Rousey next defends her title in November against Holly Holm at UFC 193 at Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, which is expected to break the UFC’s attendance record. Pena believes a decisive victory over a veteran like Eye could put her in line for the winner of the Rousey-Holm fight, which has the champ at as much as an 18-1 favorite. 

“I didn’t get in this sport to be on the bottom tier of the fighter roster,” Pena said. “I got in this sport to let the world know that I’m the toughest female in the 135-pound division.”

And while her official record only shows a pair of UFC wins heading into Saturday, Pena prefers to count her three wins on “The Ultimate Fighter” – which don’t count toward her victory total. 

“Those were real fistfights to me,” she said. “That puts me at 5-0 (in the UFC), and after Saturday night I’ll be 6-0. The only other girl out there that’s 6-0 right now is Ronda. We’re both proven finishers, so I feel like that makes sense. I feel like that’s a fight some people want to see.”

If Pena looks as impressive against Eye as she did in her first-round TKO win over Milana Dudieva in April, which earned her an extra $50,000 in performance bonus money, the UFC brass may want to see that fight, too.