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UFC 316’s Julianna Pena is a fiery figure.
Though she’s never been the most skilled combatant, the two-time UFC champion has scored some incredible wins mostly on the strengths of heart and grit. She’s comfortable in the underdog role and in the fire alike. Those will be important traits tomorrow night (Sat., June 7, 2025) when she squares off with Judo Olympian Kayla Harrison, who is widely favored to wipe the floor with “The Venezuelan Vixen.”
In an appearance on the OverDogs Podcast, Pena talked about the early days of her professional career, when she was still working at a restaurant as a server. She got into it with a 6’3” line cook, and when the altercation got physical, it didn’t end well for the scrappy future champion.
“My stupidity [was] thinking that I could beat a man,” she explained. “I went into the back alley while I was serving, and I fought the line cook. [We were] going at each other for a long time, a long story — he dropped me three times! I got dropped, I popped right back up, I went at him again, he dropped me again.
“I had my eye swollen shut for three days and 11 stitches in my eye. I thought that I could fight a man. I don’t have an ego to be like ‘I could beat a man!’ I learned my lesson, I don’t want anything to do with fighting dudes. I actually was in my head like, ‘I’m a pro fighter, I can fight this guy and I’m gonna beat him.’ Julianna, he’s 6’3”, you’re 5’6” — take that into account! Try to bob and weave your way in to get him down. All I gotta do is get in close and take him down and then I’ll choke him, but I couldn’t even do that because the second I tried to enter, I was getting dropped. I got fired, and he got to keep his job!”
I’m getting the sense the restaurant in question didn’t have an HR department.
Despite the alleged lesson learned, Pena actually found herself in another street altercation back in 2015. Though the legal case was eventually dismissed, Pena ended up in cuffs after allegedly getting into a fight with employees at a bar. Per the reports of the time, Pena did learn an entirely different lesson about fighting men: kick ‘em in the nuts!
