Julianna Peña ‘trolled’ Harrison at UFC 307 with Nunes shout

UFC bureau analyst Chael Sonnen doesn’t believe Julianna Pena was sincere in her call after Amanda Nunes’ fight at UFC 307.

In the immediate aftermath of Bruce Buffer shouting “and new” at Peña (13-5 MMA, 8-3 UFC) as the split-decision winner over Raquel Pennington to regain the women’s bantamweight title, responded “The Venezuelan Vixen” in response to a question from Joe Rogan about who she wants next.

During the build-up to the event, Olympic gold medalist and two-time PFL champion Kayla Harrison was introduced as the next title challenger, should she defeat Ketlen Vieira in the main card opener. Harrison (18-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) was also listed as a backup for the title fight if anything went wrong during fight week.

Harrison’s services as a backup were not needed, and she took care of business against Vieira, dominating the fight when it hit the ground.

Peña had the chance to cut a fantastic promo for the potential showdown against Harrison, but instead she hit everyone with a swerve and called out Nunes, who is now retired.

Peña and Nunes are 1-1 in title fights, so a rubber match would make sense on paper. However, aside from Nunes’ all-emoji tweets, there’s no indication she’ll be back in action.

As the two-time bantamweight champion continued her call from Nunes, a split screen showed Harrison’s reaction backstage, gesturing with her fingers for Peña to run away from her.

Sonnen thought the scream was hilarious.

“That’s a troll job!” Sonnen said with a laugh during the UFC 307 post-fight show. ‘That’s a troll job! Amanda isn’t even in the organization. When she comes back, she’d like to start at 145. I mean, for good reason, the division is gone. There was a lot of space between those two fights.

“It’s clearly Kayla. Peña knows it’s Kayla, which is great. … That was a troll job, and it was very well done.”

Sonnen then harkened back to when former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley made a similar move against Merab Dvalishvili, calling out Ilia Topuria instead. Ultimately, the fight came together between O’Malley and Dvalishvili, with the latter winning the showdown at UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas.

During a post-fight press conference, Peña made sure her ambition was real by doubling down on her call for Nunes. She stated that she felt the former two-division champion retired too early and doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life now.

But before Peña can comfortably move on to another challenger, Sonnen believes she may have unfinished business with Pennington (16-10 MMA, 13-6 UFC) given the controversial nature of the judges’ scorecards in the split decision.

“I think Kayla will get the credit, but Pennington is back in the conversation,” Sonnen said. “There are a lot of people, I’m one of them, who believe Pennington won this fight. I chose Peña. I have a personal relationship with Peña. I was rooting for Peña. She didn’t win this fight, not from what I saw.