The MMA community has reacted to Raquel Pennington’s win over Mayra Bueno Silva at UFC 297.
Bueno Silva walked into her UFC women’s bantamweight championship matchup against Pennington as a considerable favorite. However, despite starting the fight off strongly, the Brazilian was seemingly overpowered by the latter.
As the fight went on, Pennington pushed the pace and established her control in the fight. She managed to stuff most of the takedown attempts as Silva continued to lose her energy. Despite the Brazilian having a good first round, the latter four rounds were won by the 35-year-old.
At the end of a dominant performance, Pennington managed to win the fight via unanimous decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-45) and became the new UFC women’s bantamweight champion.
Reacting to the fight, the MMA community including fighters like Miesha Tate, Michael Chandler, and more were quick to express their thoughts on social media. Take a look at some of the reactions below:
“Damn this is a good fight, where’s Sean Strickland when you wanna show him some bada** WMMA?!! Oh yea…He’s warming up.”
“Rocky. Champion.”
“@RockyPMMA now that you won the interim title. you can’t run from this beatdown any longer! Woo!”
Raquel Pennington wants to fight Julianna Pena next
Following her win over Mayra Bueno Silva, Raquel Pennington was quick to speak about her first title defense potentially against her long-time rival, Julianna Pena. During the post-fight octagon interview with Daniel Cormier, Pennington was asked about potentially facing Pena next.
Pennington replied by stating that she had been waiting to fight Pena for a long time. She said:
“I thought it was gonna be Juliana next. So Julianna, get your a** and sign the dotted line, it’s been 10 years that I’ve been waiting for that fight.”
Catch Pennington’s comments in the video below (3:10):