LAS VEGAS — Julianna Peña quietly danced in her corner as bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes made the long walk to the cage for their title fight Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 269 at sold-out T-Mobile Arena.
For more than five years, Peña had waited for this moment since Nunes won the title at UFC 200 in 2016 by crushing her mentor and close friend, Miesha Tate. She’d believed against all odds that she’d get the job done.
Before she even was in the UFC, she heard UFC president Dana White was at Syndicate MMA in Las Vegas.