Julianna Pena 'Plagued' By Injuries Leading Up to UFC 316 Title Bout

If facing Kayla Harrison wasn’t a difficult enough task by itself, Julianna Pena did so at a diminished capacity.

Pena, who relinquished the bantamweight crown in a second-round submission defeat to Harrison in the UFC 316 co-main event on June 7, revealed the extent of her ailments during a recent appearance on "The Ariel Helwani Show."

"I was plagued with several injuries leading up to that fight, and it was not a good camp for me in that sense because I knew I was going into the fight with a pretty severe handicap,” Pena said. “It crossed my mind [not to fight], but it wasn't bad enough to the point where I would have to not fight because I knew I was going to be able to push through, but I think it's a funny thing that my coaches probably didn't explain the severity of the situation to me. Otherwise, I probably would have thought more heavily on not competing.”

“The Venezuelan Vixen” says she injured both her thumb and elbow late in her training camp. The latter injury will require surgery next month.

Julianna Pena Fought at UFC 316 with ‘Severe Handicap’

"About the second week of May, I broke my thumb on my training partner, and it was swollen," Pena said. "It looked like someone hit me in the hand with a hammer, and it was really difficult to grip. It still is right now very difficult to grip and to have grip strength. But then the 29th of May, I took a really bad fall in the Octagon, and I tore my elbow and broke off a ton of bone chips so that I wasn’t able to straighten my arm or bend my arm fully. I worked on that for a few days before I left to fight week, but every day it was just worse and worse and worse.

"It looked like someone whacked me in the back of the elbow with a baseball bat. It was just so swollen, and the MRI, the x-rays showed a tear and a lot of bone chips in the back of that. So going into a fight 10 days out after having a tear like that and all those bone chips, it's just excruciating, and it's very painful. It's hard to throw a punch, it's hard to extend, it's hard to grip, it's hard to bend. It's just all-around very painful. I'm having surgery for that in July, and I'm going to clean that up.”

Pena has twice captured 135-pound gold during her promotional tenure, only to relinquish the belt in her first title defense on both occasions. Despite entering UFC 316 under less than ideal circumstances, she doesn’t regret going through with the fight. Harrison is expected to face former two-division champion Amanda Nunes in her first title defense. Pena has already called “dibs” on the winner of that fight.

"I don't regret competing," Pena said. "I put in too much time. I've taken away too much time from other people. From my daughter, from my coaches, from their families. So I don't regret competing, no. I just wish that I could have competed under better circumstances.”