Julianna Pena dethrones Amanda Nunes, wins UFC BW championship at UFC 269

Julianna Pena scores massive upset

The Ultimate Fighting Championship returns to the T-Mobile Arena in Paradise, Nevada once again tonight, December 11, 2021, for UFC 269.

Headlining the card is a UFC lightweight championship bout between our newly crowned champion Charles Oliveira, who faces No. 1 contender and former interim champion Dustin Poirier in the five round main event of the evening.

Co-headlining is UFC women’s bantamweight & featherweight champion Amanda Nunes, who looks to defend her bantamweight title for the sixth time tonight in her return to the division against No. 3 ranked TUF 18 winner Julianna Pena.

Nunes hasn’t fought at 135 lbs since defending her bantamweight championship against Germaine de Randamie back in December of 2019, her last two outings showed her defend her featherweight belt. Tonight’s date makes that three days shy of two years ago.

Continue reading to see how this epic bantamweight championship clash went down:

Official Result: Julianna Pena def. Amanda Nunes via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:26 of round two

Round 1

Nunes sweeps Pena’s leg out from under her with a heavy leg kick, and drops her with a jab coming in not long after. Pena’s gets back to her feet quickly, before Nunes takes her back down.

Things aren’t looking great for the challenger. The champion is attempting a rear naked choke, but is unable to secure it and rides out the rest of the round on top.

Round 2

Nunes picks up where she left off in round one, up until Pena starts landing her jab. She lands three of them in a row before following up with a hard cross, and she doesn’t stop throwing them.

Nunes is really getting tagged up at this point, and she’s throwing back while being hit.

This goes on for half the round, and at this point Nunes is exhausted. Not only that, but she’s fighting Pena in the exact fashion that Cris Cyborg fought her, she couldn’t be more reckless.

Well, through the recklessness, Nunes continues getting hurt, and Pena throws her to the ground.

Pena then sinks her arm under Nunes’ neck, without either hook mind you, and submits the women’s goat.

JULIANNA PENA SHOCKS THE WORLD 🌎 #UFC269 pic.twitter.com/LNr4amWe94

— UFC (@ufc) December 12, 2021

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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