Adam Morrison and Julianna Peña both know the taste of greatness. And they’ve also been haunted by defeat.
Peña reached the highest of highs when she upset Amanda Nunes for the bantamweight title. Nunes entered that fight in December of 2021 as an unstoppable force, and only a precious few outside of Peña’s friends and family envisioned her emerging victorious. Yet she did, in remarkable fashion, bludgeoning Nunes with a flurry of strikes before forcing her to tap. She also knows the lows of defeat, which stung her last July when she lost the belt back to Nunes.
“Those tough times, you can’t allow them to hold you back,” says Peña. “You need to be strong. I’ve lost, and I know that pain–and I’ve tore up both my knees, too. All those instances, they made me ask myself, how can I get better? That’s been my driving force, to get back and compete at the highest level. Being better every day, that continues to push me forward.”
