Former UFC champions, Julianna Peña is irked by the retirement of her bitter rival Amanda Nunes, who walked away as an undisputed two-division champion. Nunes successfully retained her UFC bantamweight title with a dominant win over Irene Aldana in the main event of UFC 289 on Saturday, June 10. However, shortly after the win, the Brazilian announced her retirement from MMA, prompting Pena to declare, ‘Nunes is dead to me at this point’.
While most of the fighters celebrated Nunes’ exit form the competition and her illustrious career, Peña decided to mock her retirement. Speaking on The MMA Hour, the American expressed her frustration and said that she had the urge to throw Nunes over the cage several times.
“There was a part of me that really wanted to storm the cage,” Peña said. “I had so many people like, ‘Yes, we’ll do it, we’ll throw you over the gate!’ Then my coach was like, ‘Don’t do it. Be classy and don’t do it.’ So I let her have my moment, but it was really difficult for me because there were so many times where my urge was to go, ‘Now is the time, go, go go.,” Pena said.
“But at the end of the day, she’s retired, she’s off in the sunset, she’s dead to me at this point, and we’ve just got to keep the division moving. Now we’re stepping into day one of the ‘Peña Power’ era. I’m the champ, I’ve always been the champ in my heart and in my head. … So it’s just a matter of time before the belt’s around my waist again,” she added.
Pena will never get a chance to avenge her own loss
The heated rivalry between the two began at UFC 200 and UFC 269 was one of the biggest upsets in MMA history.
“The Venezuelan Vixen” and Nunes again fought in UFC 277, with Nunes winning, and their trilogy was slated to conclude at UFC 289. Unfortunately, Pena was ruled out due to a rib injury, and Aldana stepped in, meaning the American will never have the opportunity to revenge her own defeat.
“I’ve been telling you from the beginning: She’s been wanting to retire, she was one foot out the door the entire time. At the end of the day, Amanda didn’t want the fight. The whole time the UFC tried asked her to make the trilogy, she didn’t want to make it, and they made that clear to me. They said, ‘She doesn’t want to fight you.’
“All of this is completely irrelevant. What’s relevant now is that she’s gone. She’s dead to me. I don’t want anything to do with this girl now or for the foreseeable future,” the 33-year-old added.
