UFC Bantamweight Champion Ladies Julianna Pena has overcome a lot of adversity in her career, some of which even Dana White shocked.
Pena is currently in the middle of her second title line and is rapidly approaching the first defense.
On Saturday, June 7, Pena and Kayla Harrison will be the UFC 316 Co-Headline, which will bring a feud on the octagon that has been smoking since the PFL days of the Challenger.
While 'the Venezuelan Vixen' is being widely taken out, it is no stranger to find success as an underdog in the UFC.
And the chance of the only thing Pena has overcome in MMA.
The 35-year-old has repeatedly fought injuries, nothing more more serious than the person she suffered from a controversial gym incident who was furious.
Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty images
Julianna Pena suffered serious knee injury in the gym that branded Dana White 'disgusting'
Pena won the Ultimate Fighter 18 and went in 2014 in search of buildings at that momentum. But her plans to make a statement against Jessica Andrade on UFC 171 fell in a devastating way.
White announced that Pena had sustained a terrible injury by a training partner in the Skijitsu Gym in Spokane.
During a media scrum for UFC 169, White described the relevant details that had been told him about a gripping exchange with an alleged aggressive training partner, whose relocation Pena left with a torn MCL, ACL, LCL, Meniscus and hamstring.
“It is the worst injury I have ever heard of in this sport, and you hear about that kind of injuries in football,” said White. “Apparently, when she entered the gym – and again, she was hysterical when I cried with her, cried – she trained in her gym and one of her training partners, a man, said to her:” Oh, you're wearing your ultimate yacht shirt, we are really scared. “
“He says that and spoke to her and then she attacked her. He jumped on her back, began to turn her neck and the way she blew her knee out. The most disgusting thing I have ever heard in my life. She will be gone one and a half to two years and that is all they know.
“It sounds like mistreatment for me, but how do you consider it an attack in a gym? Do you know what I mean?”
Pena was eventually out of operation throughout the 2014 after an operation and returned in April 2015 with a bonus -worthy victory over Milana Dudieva.
The Coach of Julianna Pena refuted the claims of Dana White
White's report of the incident was refuted by the head coach of the gym, Rick Little.
Speaking with MMA Weekly shortly after the news about Pena's injury came out, there was little to it that the incident was just an accident and by no means a deliberate act of 'bullying'.
“They are friends. They are family friends. They have trained hundreds of times and they have to use him when he fights.
“Julianna is the heart and soul of our team and absolutely nothing was more devastating than to wear her to my car last week,” Little continued. “The accident was clear and simple. It was a training accident that took place for years with its normal training partner of 145 pounds.
“There was no horse game or abuse. I guarantee that the man would be in the same state as she was.”
The incident did not prevent Pena from going into the gym, where she still trains after she arrived there for the first time as an amateur in 2008.
After Pena had shocked the world by submitting Amanda Nunes with coach Klein by her side, the couple will try to deliver a monumental upset again at UFC 316.