It was only a matter of time before Juliana Pena began making excuses.
“Venezuela’s Vixen” suffered a dominant loss of obedience to Kayla Harrison at UFC 316 earlier this month, entrusting the bantamweight world title in the process.
Pena seemed humbled in the defeat and apparently shared a long embrace with Harrison shortly after the scrap, but the two-time title holders claim that they are now dealing with “some injuries” towards “some injuries” that seriously affected the quality of the camp.
“I was suffering from a few injuries heading into that fight, and in that sense it wasn’t a good camp for me because I knew I was going to fight with a rather tough handicap,” Pena said when she appeared on Ariel Helwani’s show.
“It went beyond my heart (to withdraw), but I knew I couldn’t fight, so I wasn’t so bad that I had to fight. But it’s funny that my coach didn’t explain the seriousness of the situation to me. I wish I could compete under better circumstances.”
Juliana Pena reveals details of her post-war injuries
Although she was vague at first about the details, Pena was opened up about her injuries during training as a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
“In the second week of May, I broke my thumb on my training partner. It was swollen. It looked like someone hit me with a hammer on my hand. It’s really hard to hold, and yet it’s really hard,” Peña said. “Then I fell really badly on the octagon, tore my elbows, broke a lot of bone chips, so I couldn’t straighten my arms or bend my arms completely.
“It was very swollen and the MRI and X-ray showed tears and lots of bone chips behind it, so when you enter the 10-day fight it’s just unbearable, very painful, and it’s difficult to throw a punch and stretch it out.”
Pena also confirmed that the arm Harrison had submitted her in the second round was the same as the one he compromised during training. As a result, it was able to shelves “Venezuela Vixen” for a foreseeable future, but her return timeline was not provided or suggested.
