Pennington: Holm shouldn’t earn a title shot with one win
Raquel Pennngton: “We’ve worked our butts off to get where we’re at and I don’t see it being very fair that she can go from boxing into MMA where nobody has really known about [her] fights.”
It has been speculated that should Holly Holm win her UFC debut at UFC 184, Holly Holm may earn a title shot with Ronda Rousey. But for her UFC 184 opponent, Raquel Pennington, that is something that should not happen and would be undeserving:
“Honestly, I think it’s a bunch of crap, if you ask me,” Pennington said Thursday at UFC 184 media day. “I think there’s a lot of women in the UFC. We’ve worked our butts off to get where we’re at and I don’t see it being very fair that she can go from boxing into MMA where nobody has really known about [her] fights.”
Pennington (5-4) also doesn’t think Holm is taking the fight against her seriously. The two were supposed to fight at UFC 181 on Dec. 6 until Holm got injured and had to pull out. After Pennington beat Ashlee Evans-Smith by first-round submission on the card, she asked the UFC to get the debuting Holm again. The promotion obliged.
“You know what has frustrated me for a while?” Pennington said. “When we were supposed to fight the first time, she was doing interviews and I feel like she was just looking completely past everything. She was definitely riding the hype train with it. She did some interviews where I don’t even think she knew who she was fighting, it sounded like. She was calling me Jessica and then right away going on to a Ronda interview. It’s something frustrating. I think you need to work your way up. You need to prove yourself.”