Raquel Pennington may have lost her title because of two judges’ scorecards, but she still believes she’s the champion after UFC 307.
Pennington put her bantamweight title on the line for the first time against longtime rival Julianna Peña in the co-main event of the UFC’s recent pay-per-view card in Salt Lake City. Peña regained the title via split decision, but it came with controversy, as the majority of the MMA community scored the fight for Pennington — including a near-unanimous nod on MMA Decisions.
Not only did the media members that posted cards score it for the now-former champion, but according to Pennington, a number of figureheads — including a couple high up in the UFC hierarchy — saw the fight the same.
“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,” Pennington told MMA Fighting. “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. I even feel bad for Jose Aldo. His fight was the same thing.
“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. I’ve had numerous top athletes reach out to me. I’ve had Dana White, freaking Hunter [Campbell], Joe Rogan, Jon Anik, [Daniel Cormier], 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.”
The loss put a halt to Pennington’s six-fight win streak.
The final four rounds were easy to score for all who watched — the second and third for Peña, fourth and fifth for Pennington, including a fourth round that saw Pennington hurt Peña with a head kick early and then drop Peña with a big punch shortly thereafter. The first round, which two judges scored for Peña, was the deciding factor.
When it was over, Pennington says she was never more confident she had won the fight, until she heard Bruce Buffer announce Peña as the new champion.
“They had my family lined up ready to come in there and then when they announced it, they were like, ‘Is Bruce like playing a joke here?’” Pennington said. “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.
“They need to look into it a little bit different because this happens way too often.”
After the win, Peña called for a trilogy fight with the now-retired Amanda Nunes — one of the all-time greats that has teased a possible return — despite the broadcast going to a split-screen with prior UFC 307 winner Kayla Harrison.
In Pennington’s eyes, she believes two things should happen. One, the UFC considers an open scoring model to help with some of the shoddy scorecards that have become more frequent. And also, Pennington feels like the real bantamweight title fight should be between her and Harrison.
“I feel like something definitely needs to change with it,” Pennington explained. “I know a lot of athletes have spoken about open scoring ... that might play out for more exciting fights, which is lighting a fire under people, but something definitely just needs to change, in general.
“But at the end of the day, I mean, it is what it is. I personally don’t feel like I lost that fight at all. My head is high. I do want the rematch, but with that being said, we all know Julianna sits around forever — whether it’s an injury or she just... she tends to sit around forever. 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. So I don’t know, the frustration’s there, I don’t really have words for it all and whatnot, but at the end of the day it’s competition, they gave her the win. So whatever, congratulations to her. I definitely know I’m going to be back stronger and better than ever, and I’m motivated on a completely different level. I have no injuries. I did go get my hands X-rayed from cracking her so hard. My hands are definitely hurt, but aside from that, I came out of that fight completely healthy. I’ll be back. ...
“At the end of the day, like, I still feel like a champion. So it doesn’t matter.”
