The ladies’s bantamweight title modified fingers at UFC 316 on June 7 in Newark, New Jersey. Kayla Harrison dethroned former two-time titleholder Julianna Pena within the struggle card’s co-main occasion on the Prudential Heart.
Harrison secured a submission win through kimura late within the second spherical so as to add a UFC championship to her two Olympic gold medals and championships within the Skilled Fighters League (PFL). Pena revealed that she entered the struggle with Harrison with a number of accidents.
“I used to be plagued with a number of accidents main as much as that struggle and it was not an excellent camp for me in that sense as a result of I knew that I used to be going into the struggle with a fairly extreme handicap,” Pena mentioned on The Ariel Helwani Present.
The nagging accidents weren’t extreme sufficient for Pena to tug out of the struggle, however she thought of it.
“It crossed my thoughts however it wasn’t unhealthy sufficient to the purpose the place I must not struggle as a result of I knew I used to be going to have the ability to push by way of,” She mentioned. “However, I feel it is a humorous factor the place my coaches did not clarify the severity of the scenario to me as a result of in any other case I in all probability would have thought extra closely on not competing.”
Pena would not have any regrets about not backing out of the struggle. She had put in an excessive amount of work to not make the stroll to the octagon.
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“I do not remorse competing. I put in an excessive amount of time. I taken away an excessive amount of time from different folks: from my daughters, from my coaches, from their households. So, I do not remorse competing,” Pena mentioned. “I simply want I might have competing underneath higher circumstances.”
Pena detailed her accidents and will likely be going into surgical procedure subsequent month to handle a few of them.
“In regards to the second week of Might, I broke my thumb on my coaching accomplice, and it was swollen,” Peña revealed. “It seemed like somebody hit me within the hand with a hammer, and it was actually troublesome to grip. It nonetheless is true now very troublesome to grip and to have grip energy.
“However then the twenty ninth of Might, I took a extremely unhealthy fall within the octagon, and I tore my elbow and broke off a ton of bone chips in order that I wasn’t capable of straighten my arm or bend my arm totally. I labored on that for just a few days earlier than I left to struggle week, however on a regular basis it was simply worse and worse and worse.”
