Raquel Pennington has seen this before.
Back in 2015, when Ronda Rousey was one of the biggest stars in the UFC, and desperately in need of new competition, Holly Holm made her debut against Pennington to much fanfare following her Hall of Fame boxing career. Pennington actually took Holm to a split decision in that fight before “The Preacher’s Daughter” proved the hype was real when she demolished Rousey just nine months later.
As Pennington approaches her first title defense in the UFC 307 co-main event, she sees something similar happening with two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison, a big free-agent signing poised to become No. 1 contender with a win over Ketlen Vieira on Saturday.
“I feel like Kayla is the new Holly,” Pennington told MMA Fighting. “Everybody’s on her hype train. Everybody else, I feel they really truly had to build themselves up. Like Amanda [Nunes] said, for her first few fights, the world was just constantly talking shit, hating on her and then she proved her damn point and she built that for her.
“You just have some athletes come in and they have that, they have the hype train, they have the fans behind them and everything else and I feel that’s what Kayla has.”
Pennington doesn’t necessarily hold any animosity towards Harrison for the attention she’s receiving, but she knows from her own career that nothing was handed to her solely on name value.
That’s one of the reasons why Pennington wasn’t keen on Harrison getting a title shot immediately after she tore through Holm back at UFC 300.
“I’ve stated it before, I’ve been in this sport for a really long time, I’ve had to work from the bottom up,” Pennington explained. “I’ve never been handed anything. It gets frustrating when you’re busting your ass and there’s athletes who all of a sudden just because they have huge hype or this, that or another and they come in and all of a sudden they get thrown to the very top.
“I was very adamant about the fact — and yeah, being a champion, I’m down to fight anybody — but I just feel as a person and for other fellow athletes who are in the position that I’ve always been in, did I think it was fair for Kayla to come in [and get a title shot]? No. Was I more set on Julianna [Peña]? Yes, because of the history and everything else.”
Pennington gets her wish as she faces Peña in the UFC 307 co-main event with Harrison sitting just two spots behind her on the card.
It’s almost certain if Harrison wins she gets a title shot and Pennington is happy that she won’t have to wait long for a new No. 1 contender to emerge after she gets through Peña on Saturday.
As much as she wishes all fighters had to truly earn their way to the top, Pennington is genuinely excited to eventually face Harrison in the cage to see if the hype is real. In fact, Pennington actually spent a big part of her training camp preparing for Harrison just in case Peña failed to show up.
“Do I love the fact that the matchup is there between Kayla and Ketlen? I absolutely do,” Pennington said. “Do I think it’s definitely a No. 1 contender fight? I do.
“Honestly we prepared for this fight, too, because Julianna has a history of getting injured that it could possibly be Kayla getting bumped up. I know she put it out there she wanted to be the backup fighter. So I prepared for two different chicks here. You need to wait your turn but with that being said, I am older, I plan on going out there and I plan on winning this fight and then after that, do I think regardless it will probably be Kayla next? I absolutely do. I would love to be the one to go out there and just shut that shit up.”
Looking back at the history of the bantamweight division in the UFC there have been a couple of distinct eras starting with Rousey’s reign and then Amanda Nunes’ emergence as arguably the greatest of all time.
Now Pennington is ready to establish a new standard with her first title defense and then hopefully add Harrison’s name to the list of fighters she wasn’t supposed to beat.
“Ronda had her journey and then Amanda came out and just completely cleared out everything and shut everybody up,” Pennington said. “What can I do?
“Well all of a sudden Kayla gets signed and it’s like cool, aside from achieving my ultimate goal, now you have another big game. I would love to shut that hype train down.”
