UFC bantamweight champion Julianna Pena has opened up about her past experiences with street fights against men, which taught her valuable lessons about not underestimating male physical advantages.
Speaking on the Overdogs Podcast, Pena recounted two incidents that demonstrated the reality of physical differences between men and women. In one instance, she got into a street fight with a male line cook behind a restaurant where they both worked.
“He dropped me three times and I have to say, and this is no ego, I popped right back up after every single time,” Pena recalled. “I got dropped, I popped right back up, I went at him again, he dropped me again and I had my eye swollen shut for three days and 11 stitches in my eye because I thought that I could fight a man.”
In another incident at the gym, Pena tore four out of five ligaments in her knee while wrestling with a male training partner. “That was because of my stupidity thinking that I could beat a man,” she admitted.
These experiences taught Pena to be more realistic about physical differences between genders. “I’m taking a female opponent every single time. I don’t have any ego to be like I can beat a man – I’ve learned my lesson. I don’t want anything to do with fighting dudes for real,” she stated.
Despite these sobering experiences, Pena has gone on to achieve great success in women’s MMA, becoming the first woman to give birth and win a UFC championship twice. She is currently preparing to face Kayla Harrison in an upcoming title defense.
The candid discussion highlights important realities about biological differences while demonstrating how Pena used these early lessons to focus on achieving excellence within women’s competition, where she has proven herself as one of the sport’s elite champions.
