Pena injured following "assault", Pennington now faces andrade at ufc 171

Raquel Pennington vs Jessica Andrade now set for UFC 171

by Ben Heather @benheather

Earlier this week reports came out that The Ultimate Fighter Season 18 women’s champion Julianna Pena had suffered a knee injury ahead of her scheduled fight against Jessica Andrade at UFC 171. At the time no details emerged of how the injury happened that was until Dana White tweeted last night

What happened to @VenezuelanVixen at "her gym" is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. Ranked #10 out for 2 years. #leavethatgymnow
— Dana White (@danawhite) January 30, 2014

The extent of Julianna Pena's injury is a torn ACL, MCL, LCL and meniscus. Though how it happened at Sik-Jitsu Fighting Systems, where Pena trains in Spokane, Washington is still a bit of a mystery and during the UFC 169 pre fight scrum Dana added what he has been told about the incident.

"It’s the worst injury I’ve ever heard of, ever, in this sport, and you hear about those types of injuries in football," he said. "Apparently, when she came into the gym she was training in her gym and one of her training partners, a guy, was saying to her, ‘oh, you’re wearing your Ultimate Fighter shirt, we’re real scared.’ He says that and was talking smack to her and then basically attacked her.

"He jumped on her back, started cranking her neck, and the way she fell her knee blew out. The most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. A year-and-a-half to two years she’ll be out, and I told her to leave that disgusting gym and go somewhere else with new coaches, new training partners, whatever. And that’s all I know."

All White knew was that it was a man that caused the injured but he didn't know who but in his opinion it sounded like assault.

"It sounds like assault to me, but how do you consider it assault in a gym? You know what I mean?"

When Dana was told of Rick Little's version of events he was shocked at how different it was from what he was told. Little said that Pena didn't do her proper warm up and was training with some guys before he arrived when the injury happened.

"That’s so far from the story she told me right after she was completely hysterical and crying, completely opposite," he said. "Completely different story from what she told me. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth."

Pena will travel to Los Angeles next week to undergo surgery and hopefully repair her knee.

With the injury to Pena, Jessica Andrade was left without an opponent. That was until Pena's fellow TUF season 18 housemate Raquel Pennington stepped up and will fill in against the Brazilian Andrade.

Pennington defeated Roxanne Modafferi in November in her UFC debut, while Andrade got back to winning ways picking up her first win in the UFC against Rosi Sexton in October following a loss to Liz Carmouche in her UFC debut.