Julianna Pena reacts to Amanda Nunes title shot rejection

Champ champ Amanda Nunes obliterated Megan Anderson at UFC 259, and UFC president Dana White sounded amenable to her next defense being vs. Julianna Pena. “The Venezuelan Vixen” saw a scheduled fight vs. former bantamweight champion Holly Holm fall apart when “The Preacher’s Daughter’s” kidneys swelled up requiring surgery. So a bantamweight title defense made sense.

However, Nunes said Pena needed another win to merit a title shot. During a recent interview with The Schmo, Pena characterized that stance as “Ridiculous.”

She’s been turning down a fight for a long time now, said Pena. I think that her asking me to fight [Germaine de Randamie] again is comical. To me, it’s clear as day she doesn’t want to fight me. She doesn’t want to fight a wrestler and a grappler. She’s been fighting nothing but pure strikers ever since she won the belt against Miesha.

The funny thing about her wanting me to fight Germaine, like, you didn’t ask Holly to fight one more, you didn’t ask Megan Anderson to fight one more, you didn’t ask Felicia Spencer to fight one more. All these girls are new to the division with .500 records but for me for some reason it’s always, ‘Oh, she’s got to fight one more. She’s got to be in the mix.’ I’ve been in the mix. I’ve been here. I’ve been fighting just as long as she has and I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that she would ask me to fight one more, again, especially since Holly pulled out.

If you look at Cat Zingano, she was a great grappler, a great wrestler, and she was great in the division. Then if you look at Sara McMann, a silver [medalist] Olympic wrestler, a great grappler. I beat them both so I now think I hold the reins as the best grappler in the division. . .

Stylistically, I’m the worst possible matchup out there for her and she knows that. So it’s just kind of frustrating that she would ask me to again fight one more. Why don’t you ever ask anybody else to fight one more? Why is it just me?

She hasn’t defended her title at 135 pounds since 2019. So if she needs longer time to cut the weight and come down to 135 since she says she’s super big right now, then I’ll wait if that’s what it means to be able to fight for the title.

The real question though is if not Pena, then who??!?