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Women’s Bantamweights

Julianna Pena (9-3) vs. Germaine de Randamie (9-4)

ODDS: Pena (-115), de Randamie (-105)

She may not excel at winning over anyone, but de Randamie has enjoyed a quietly successful run in the UFC and might be the promotion’s second-best female bantamweight. Despite winning much more than she loses, “The Iron Lady” has never had much momentum inside the Octagon. At first, a lot of that was due to inactivity. De Randamie would fight once a year and not in a particularly prominent spot, but she would look good in those moments against the likes of Larissa Pacheco and Anna Elmose. That made it a shock when she was suddenly thrown into a main event slot at UFC 208 in 2017. The UFC decided to establish a women’s featherweight division, and despite Cristiane Justino being unavailable, it soldiered on with a fight between converted bantamweights in de Randamie and Holly Holm. De Randamie walked away with the victory, but it felt about as flat as possible. It was not a particularly exciting fight; it resulted in a controversial decision; and de Randamie eventually decided to relinquish the belt rather than fight “Cyborg.” As legitimate as her gripes about Justino’s steroid usage may have been, backing out of a fight in such a high-profile situation has stuck with de Randamie ever since, though, to her credit, she has still won enough to get featured in some prominent positions. She handled Raquel Pennington without much issue before putting away Aspen Ladd in a 16-second main event. That earned her an unsuccessful title challenge against Amanda Nunes, though she did provide enough danger that the “Lioness” was mostly forced to win an uninspiring wrestling contest. There is probably not a path back to the championship picture for de Randamie—at least until Nunes steps away—so for now, it is a matter of turning back other contenders to try and stay in the catbird seat. That is where Pena comes in.

Pena’s own career has been plagued by inactivity, even more so than de Randamie’s. “The Venezuelan Vixen” became the first female winner of “The Ultimate Fighter” at the tail end of 2013, and she looked set to move quickly through a bantamweight division that had yet to fully sort itself out. However, Pena suffered a serious knee injury that kept her out of action for a year and a half, so any plans for her to charge up the ladder had to be halted until 2015. To her credit, Pena made up for lost time. Milana Dudieva proved to be no match for Pena’s heavy and aggressive grappling game, and she managed to outwork and outmuscle Jessica Eye and Cat Zingano for clear decision wins. That put Pena one win away from a title shot, but that fight unfortunately came against Valentina Shevchenko. Pena outwrestled the future flyweight queen for a round but fell victim to a fight-ending armbar in the second frame. That bout was at the beginning of 2017, and Pena has only had one fight since due to pregnancy: a July 2019 scrap against Nicco Montano. There was some good news and some bad news in that fight. Pena entered the cage with a much more measured approach and seems to finally be attempting to round out her game, but Montano—a former flyweight—had a surprising amount of success implementing her own wrestling game over the course of 15 minutes. Pena still walked away with a win, but given that she is now fully established near the top of the bantamweight division, it will be interesting to see her try to work out the kinks against strong competition.

It might actually serve Pena well to revert to her more aggressive form in this bout. While de Randamie has shored up her defensive grappling to the point that she was not embarrassed by Nunes, it remains a clear weakness that could allow Pena to control the fight. In terms of the striking, the exact opposite is true. Pena is certainly less of an overaggressive mess on the feet than she was at the start of her career, but she is still in a position to get blown out of the water by de Randamie in that phase. Pena’s punches are still wild and looping, so de Randamie should be able to counter her at will. The only concern is de Randamie’s consistently low output preventing her from fully taking over the match. However, if Pena is going to try and march down de Randamie rather than just charge into takedowns, then the former kickboxer should have plenty of wiggle room with which to work and cause enough damage to emerge victorious. The pick is de Randamie via late second-round stoppage.

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