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Brett Okamoto, ESPN Staff Writer
SALT LAKE CITY — Julianna Peña became just the second two-time champion in UFC women’s bantamweight history Saturday, but did so by the narrowest of decisions.
Peña (11-5) took the belt from defending champion Raquel Pennington (16-9) via split decision in the co-main event of UFC 307 inside Delta Center. Two judges scored the five-round fight 48-47 for Peña, while a third had it 48-47 for Pennington.
Peña joins her former rival and all-time great Amanda Nunes as the only two-time champions in the history of the 135-pound division.
Both women appeared to show a little surprise as the result was read. Pennington floored Peña with a right hand in the fourth round. She also appeared to more or less dominate Peña in the fifth round, as Peña might have been slow to recover from the knockdown.
“I wasn’t sure,” Peña said when asked if she thought she had won. “I heard the judges were doing some crazy stuff tonight. I didn’t want to leave it in the hands of the judges, but Raquel is very tough.”
As the two fighters were waiting for the result to be read, Peña could be seen mouthing the words, “Did I win?” to her cornermen, while Pennington appeared very confident.
“I did feel like I won that fight,” Pennington said. “That first round she took me down, but other than that, I felt I was landing more strikes and doing what I do. And then dropping her too.”
Peña, who first won the title in 2021 with an upset of Nunes, converted two of three takedown attempts, but she did not keep her down for an extended amount of time and failed to build much offense from the wrestling. She did threaten to submit Pennington after scoring an outside trip in the third round.
The deciding round proved to be the first, as all three judges agreed Peña won Rounds 2 and 3 while Pennington won Rounds 4 and 5.
Earlier in the night, former two-time PFL champion Kayla Harrison (18-1) earned a hard-fought decision over Ketlen Vieira. Expectations are that Harrison will challenge Peña for the belt next. The two got into it during a news conference earlier this week. However, after Saturday’s fight, Peña instead called out Nunes, who retired in 2023. The two are 1-1 against each other. Nunes avenged her 2021 loss to Peña decisively in an immediate rematch in 2022.
“I would really like Amanda Nunes to stop ducking and come back to the Octagon,” Peña said. “We’re 1-1. It would be the greatest fight. I do not believe she is done. I want to see her back.”