Julianna Pena responds to Amanda Nunes injury claim following UFC 269 loss: “You gotta say whatever you gotta say”

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena doesn’t care for Amanda Nunes revealing injuries following their fight last December.

At UFC 269, ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ faced off against ‘The Lioness’. Despite being a massive underdog, Pena would spring one of the biggest upsets in UFC history. The 32-year-old submitted the long-reigning women’s bantamweight champion in the second round.

Following the loss, Amanda Nunes came forth with claims that she was fighting with an injury in the bout. In an interview with ESPN, the former women’s bantamweight stated:

“Both knees was, like, pretty bad and I wasn’t able to recover. Every time that I training, [I went] back home, and the next day I couldn’t even walk. I needed rest. I couldn’t turn, do all the things that I have to do, like do jiu jitsu that much, wrestling. Pretty much, I was doing only hands, like striking or whatever I going to do for conditioning, I used only my arms. So that cost me my belt.”

Image Credit: @UFC/Instagram

Now, Julianna Pena has responded to Amanda Nunes’s injury claims. In an interview with KREM2, the 32-year-old noted that she’s never made excuses following a defeat. She also discussed her goal to prove the doubters wrong in the rematch next month at UFC 277.

“I’ve had two knee surgeries, one on each knee, you know, and I’ve never used me getting choked unconscious like ‘Oh, it was because of my knees,’ you know what I mean? So you gotta say whatever you can to motivate yourself and to pump yourself up, and to sleep at night so that you can say ‘Yes, it was my knees, and next time I’m gonna get it done.’ So you gotta say whatever you gotta say, and I understand that.” (h/t SportsKeeda)

Julianna Pena continued, “People are still counting me out, people are still doubting me, people are still saying it’s a fluke and she had a bad night and this, that, and the other. They have every excuse in the book for why I won. And so my whole premise behind wanting to do the rematch was just that I am here to stay, that this is my time and my era. The Amanda era is done, it’s the Julianna Pena era now.”