Raquel Pennington landed the vacant UFC bantamweight title on Saturday, January 20, when she faced Mayra Bueno Silva at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada. The pair squared off in the co-main event at UFC 297: Strickland vs du Plessis live on pay-per-view.
No. 2-ranked contender of the U.S. took the victory against Brazil’s No. 3 by unanimous decision. After five rounds the scores were 49-46, 49-46 and 49-45.
Pennington became champion on her second attempt. The 35-year-old previously fought for the same belt in May 2018, when she challenged the then champion Amanda Nunes, but was stopped in the fifth round. In addition to the title, the native of Colorado Springs, Colorado improved to 16-8 and secured her sixth win in a row.
32-year-old Silva of Uberlandia, Brazi, who fought for her first UFC title, dropped to 10-3-1, 1 NC.
“I expected to come out here and do a lot more, be a lot different,” Raquel Pennington said post-win. “But a fight it’s a fight. Mayra was tough.”
“It’s been a long five years. I have climbed mountains to get back here. And for everybody, who is chasing a dream, and you have people telling you ‘you can’t do it, you are not good enough’, stay believing. Because that’s exactly what I did.”
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