The damn T-shirt didn’t even fit. It was a triple-XL, designed for a man the size of Fedor Emelianenko, not a woman of 120 pounds or so. Julianna Peña had taken the fight—what might pass for a pro debut—knowing she wasn’t getting paid in actual currency. But the ill-fitting shirt the promoter tossed her as compensation for her efforts added insult to whatever minor injury she suffered.
This was in 2009 or so. These were the early days of MMA. And the infancy of women’s MMA. Dana White was still declaring that women were supposed be pretty, not swollen and bloody and puffy. Ronda Rousey had yet to come barreling onto the scene. In Spokane, Washington, Peña was taking off shifts from waitressing to fight in bowling alleys and barns and the backs of clubs. All the while her parents were hoping this phase would pass and she could find a real line of work.
The phase did not pass. But Peña found a career. One that, even after giving birth to a daughter, Issa, in 2018, she discharges better than any other woman her weight on the planet. That was made official in December when Peña submitted Amanda Nunes, the reigning GOAT, to become the UFC’s women’s bantamweight champ. Pena was not only paid well that night—more than $300,000 that night—but a celebrity lane opened up.
