Man Responsible For Injuring Julianna Pena Labels Media As ‘Horrible’
The first ever female TUF winner, and current Bantamweight #10 Julianna Pena had the world at her feet a few weeks ago; ‘The Venezuelan Vixen’ was scheduled to face Jessica Andrade at UFC 171, to see if the 5-2 prospect had what it takes to progress from the ultimate fighter to the big leagues.
Pena was then the victim of terrible fortune; sustaining a thoroughly awful injury in her gym, that was allegedly the result of an assault by a male team member. Pena trains down at Sik-jitsu, and the alleged attacker was undefeated Bantamweight scrapper Josh ‘Juggy’ Gow.
Gow stopped by to talk with MMA Sucka regarding that day in the gym, and his recount of the events are miles away from the supposed attack that was first believed to have taken place:
“We just started rolling and it was our first round. We were about two minutes into it, it was just submission wrestling, grappling, rolling or whatever you want to call it and I took back position off the wall. As we were falling away from the wall, with my hooks in, she was supporting my weight as I was going for a rear naked choke. Her knee twisted in a weird way and we are where we are at today. It was all really terrible… There’s really nobody that can explain it, it was just a freak accident at the gym”
From the above account of events, it would seem that the injury was a result of a cruel turn of events. Taking knocks when training in MMA is part of the game, but a torn ACL/MCL/LCL is probably the worst injury that a fighter could sustain to the knee. Pena is forecast to be out of action for the next two years, is it any wonder that Dana White was looking to point the finger of blame?
“I want my name to be pronounced in a good way and not be remembered as somebody that hurt my training partner or that was in an accident with my training partner. It’s gotten blown out of proportion and I really think it’s pretty horrible of the media to have set somebody out as an attacker and not to get all the facts before coming out with all this stuff.”
Dana White had originally described the incident as a ‘sick assault’ and the injury as ‘the worst ever’, so is it any wonder that the millions of fans and media worldwide got the wrong idea?
We are yet to see what effect the injury will have long term, but two years away from the game could be devastating for Pena’s title hopes. Whatever the case, we here at LowKick wish the Venezuelan a rapid recovery and return to MMA.
