- Raquel Pennington said Joe Rogan and UFC president Dana White also believed she beat Julianna Pena at UFC 307
- “Rocky” plans to rematch “The Venezuelan Vixen” before facing Kayla Harrison
Raquel Pennington revealed that Joe Rogan and Dana White also thought she deserved to get the nod form the judges at UFC 307.
Everybody knew ‘Rocky’ won
Speaking to MMA Fighting, a very disappointed “Rocky” voiced her issues with the way her title fight loss to Julianna Pena at UFC 307 was judged. Pennington is confident that she has done more damage to “The Venezuelan Vixen” and even Rogan and White saw the same thing. For some reason, the judges gave it to Pena.
According to the now-former bantamweight champion, something must be done to fix this ongoing issue with the judges sooner rather than later.
“When it comes to these judges, they need to make it very clear because a lot of them say that the damaging shots are what’s scoring. I had the damaging shots [in the first round], and it just gets frustrating. It gets frustrating from just being a competitor and the athlete in that situation, but not even just my fight. I have no idea what the judges were seeing that night in general. It’s just crazy to me what these judges do.”
“At the end of the day, you have competitive fights, they go to the decisions, and it just takes that one person to take away everything from somebody and I feel like they just really don’t realize what they’re doing and yet, they’re the ones with the best seat in the house. They’re the ones that are supposed to be doing the best job. And it’s crazy to me how every single media outlet, like there wasn’t even one that said Pena [won]. It was every single media outlet [that] said Pennington [won],” she pointed out.
“I’ve had numerous top athletes reach out to me. I’ve had Dana White, freaking Hunter [Campbell], Joe Rogan, Jon Anik, DC, everybody who’s sitting right there and everybody is just like, ‘No way. We don’t understand this.’ Nobody understood it. I didn’t understand it. It was all really weird but I wasn’t the only athlete on that card that situations happen to, and you see it happen in multiple other events. It’s honestly just sad. There should be different qualifications or something for these judges,” she continued. “They need to look into it a little bit different because this happens way too often.”
Raquel is coming for her title
As expected, Pennington is determined to reclaim her title and wants to run it back with Pena. For “Rocky,” the first step is to get her belt back before taking on Kayla Harrison.
“it is what it is. I personally don’t feel like I lost that fight at all,” Pennington reflected. “My head is high. I do want the rematch… I definitely want the rematch and stuff, but at the end of the day, I feel like the real world title fight comes from me and Kayla. I think it would be an exciting fight and a completely different challenge and then let Julianna do whatever the hell she wants to do right now. I do want to get back to the world title and I want my belt back.”
As Pennington pleads for a title fight rematch, Pena, meanwhile, is leaning towards a trilogy match with Amanda Nunes. White previously admitted that he would love to have Nunes back but has yet to confirm anything about the women’s bantamweight title mix.
Watch Pennington’s full interview below:
