When Julianna Pena theorized that Valentina Shevchenko not being able to beat Amanda Nunes led to creation of UFC women's flyweight division

Julianna Pena once claimed that Valentina Shevchenko’s failure to get past Amanda Nunes was a driving factor behind the UFC introducing the women’s flyweight division. Ever since the UFC introduced the 125-pound weight classs in 2017, 'Bullet' has established herself as its most dominant force, capturing the title twice and defending it successfully on seven occasions.

However, 'The Venezuelan Vixen' has maintained that the women’s 135-pound division is far deeper and more competitive than flyweight, even taking a jab at her former rival, Shevchenko, to drive the point home.

During a July 2022 interview with Yahoo Sports, Pena claimed that Shevchenko couldn’t handle the tougher competition at bantamweight, which is why she chose to drop down to a lower weight class:

"I really can't name more than two – is just girls in the 35 that don't want to cut weight so then they just move up to 45 [featherweight]. Then they had to create a whole other division at 125 because Valentina couldn't beat Amanda two times, so then they went and cut weight and created a division for her to move down to 125. The real fights, the best fights are at 135."

Check out Julianna Pena's comments below (4:45):

Shevchenko’s initial two octagon losses came against Nunes — first at UFC 196 in March 2016, and then in a bantamweight title fight at UFC 215 in September 2017.

Meanwhile, Shevchenko and Pena faced off at UFC Denver in January 2017, where ‘Bullet’ secured a dominant submission victory in the second round.

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When Julianna Pena downplayed Valentina Shevchenko’s performance against Holly Holm

Valentina Shevchenko earned a dominant unanimous decision victory over former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm at a Fight Night event in July 2016. However, the performance did little to impress Julianna Pena, who remained unconvinced by Shevchenko’s showing.

During an interview with MMA Fighting in July 2017, 'The Venezuelan Vixen' downplayed Shevchenko’s win over Holm and asserted that there was little to take away from the fight:

"It was little pitter-patter point fighting.It wasn’t exciting. Holly just wants to outpoint people like she did as boxer and Valentina was just better at it that night. She does that too, she goes for points, and she was better at it than Holly."