Noted rabble-rouser Julianna Peña watched Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour and was ready to respond in real time to Mayra Bueno Silva. But alas, there was a missed connection, so she joined Wednesday’s show to address Silva’s recent trash talk.
Silva accused Peña of being scared to fight her and no-sold a potential matchup between Peña and Pennington. The rebuttal from Peña was quick.
“I thought it was funny,” she said. “The thing is that, like, I’ve been around since the very beginning, since 2013, when the division started. So one good win, two good wins? No, I’m the first-ever woman to win The Ultimate Fighter.
“I’m the first mom champ. I’m the first to beat somebody who hadn’t been beaten in seven years and finish them. I finished everybody on The Ultimate Fighter. She’s saying that I don’t have any good fights. I literally beat everybody on The Ultimate Fighter. So after that, then I fought more, and then I had that devastating knee injury. So at that point, I think I was 7-0, and then I fought Valentina [Shevchenko].
“So dropped one fight, 7-1, had a baby, came back, and then was able to win a world title. And she says that I only have two good fights. I mean, literally, I’m the baddest mother of all-time, and Myra is my biggest fan and [Amanda Nunes’] tampon holder. That’s the reality of the situation.”
Silva made her case for the next bantamweight title shot this past weekend with an impressive win over Holly Holm — impressive, at least, to much of the MMA community who saw the Brazilian vet surprise the ex-champ with a ninja choke that coaxed a second-round tapout. Peña, as you’d expect, wasn’t impressed.
“I thought I recognized her,” Peña said of her thoughts on the matchup before Silva’s trash talk. “I said, ‘Isn’t that curtain-jerker from the APEX like a few years ago?’ But yeah, then I remembered that she fought two 41-year-olds and then started talking bad about me, and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I for sure know who this chick is.’
“Miesha Tate is someone to talk about. Holly Holm is someone to talk about. Those are legends. Mayra Bueno Silva, not so much. And yeah, impressed that she was literally losing the entire fight up until she caught that joke? No, that’s not really impressive to me. In fact, doesn’t she have unfinished business with Miesha? Like, doesn’t she need to fight her?”
Tate was scheduled to fight Silva before an injury forced the ex-champ to withdraw from the matchup, setting in motion the shift that led to a Holm vs. Silva main event at UFC Vegas 77.
Silva quickly called out Peña at the post-event press conference, vowing to “smash” the ex-champ in a potential meeting. In response, Peña boasted on Twitter that she’d fight Silva and Pennington on the same night.
On Wednesday, Peña mocked Silva’s claims about Nunes, the former two-division champion who retired after defending the title earlier this year against Irene Aldana (in a bout originally scheduled as a Peña trilogy before “The Venezuelan Vixen” was forced to skip due to a rib injury).
“Did you hear [Silva] said that she couldn’t beat Amanda? Talking to you, she said she couldn’t beat Amanda. But I, who’ve been chasing Amanda for the last seven years, am afraid of … Amanda’s tampon holder?” Peña said. “I don’t understand how that works exactly. I’m literally giving you the beginning of the UFC, [Combate Global CEO] Campbell McLaren’s fight-four-people-in-one-night-offer opportunity. I’m offering you to wait in line. I’ll wait for you in the cage after I beat Raquel, and I’ll fight you on the same night, and then you’re gonna sit there and say that I’m afraid of you? Like, GTFOH dude, I’m not having it.
“She just did the right thing, and she’s trying to make some waves so that she can get a title fight. But the reality of the situation is that me and Raquel have had some bad blood brewing for the last 10 years since we were on The Ultimate Fighter together, and that fight’s got to come first, first and foremost.”
Peña said she’s been assured she’ll get the next shot at the title and targeted November or December as the ideal time frame. She argued that Pennington, who’s on a five-fight winning streak, is the more compelling fight, no matter what Silva might say.
“[Pennington] has been crying about getting a title shot since the last time that she quit on the stool,” Peña said. “So it’s about time for her to get another ass-whooping. I would assume.”
