Raquel Pennington has learned to have fun in MMA, and the results show it

In a span of eight months, from Nov. 15, 2015 to July 9, 2016, the UFC women's bantamweight championship switched hands three times and there were four champions in that period.

The belt went from Ronda Rousey, who was promoted to UFC champion on Dec. 6, 2012, since she held the Strikeforce belt at the time, to Holly Holm on Nov. 15, 2015, to Miesha Tate on March 5, 2016, to Amanda Nunes on July 9, 2016 at UFC 200. Those four remain to this day the biggest names and brightest stars in the division's history.

The title is vacant after Nunes retired once she regained her belt from Julianna Peña, so No. 2 Raquel Pennington will face No. 3 Mayra Bueno Silva Saturday for the championship in the co-main event of UFC 297 at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

It was no shock on Wednesday at media day when middleweight champion Sean Strickland trashed women's MMA and unloaded on a reporter for asking a question about comments he'd previously made about the LGBTQ+ community.

It was somewhat shocking to hear Silva downplay the bout.

"This is not the that everybody is saying, 'Oh, I can't want to see this,' " she told keviniole.com. "I get this. This isn't the fight that everyone wants. But I'm going to perform so that when it is over, everyone is going to say, 'Mayra Bueno Silva is the chosen one!' This is my moment to show everyone what I can do."

Pennington has been in the UFC since 2013, and has had to deal with the fall-out from that. But on Wednesday, Strickland's attacks on women's MMA took things to another level.

"Let’s just be honest," he said. "I’m not going to be offensive when I say this. WNBA, NBA. Who watches what? Who makes more money? Women’s MMA, sure, have women’s MMA. Have it a f*cking thing. I don’t like to watch it. I don’t think most people like to watch it. If the females in MMA were to separate from male MMA, no one is gonna watch this shit. No one wants to watch this shit. It is what it is, man. I don’t know what to f*cking tell you, dude. F*cking, it is what it is. Why is that a bad … Like, again, do you want to watch a f*cking sports car race a f*cking Honda Civic? No, you wanna watch a f*cking sports car.

"There is a vast difference between men and women. Like, if you take this weak little fcking Canadian sitting next to you. He could probably beat up fcking Raquel Pennington. The fact of the matter is any one of you f*cks could probably beat our co-main event in a fight. And now, I’m not saying you can’t sit there and f*cking enjoy it, but I don’t want to go see f*cking two little f*cking cats fight. I want to see two f*cking lions fight."

He wore a t-shirt that said on the front, "A woman in every kitchen. A gun in every hand. Sean Strickland 2024."

He was clearly intentionally trying to provoke and be offensive to garner attention. It's what he does. But the women who will step into the Octagon immediately before he does have to deal with a lot of that fall-out.

It was a double-barrel assault on Pennington and Silva considering both are lesbians and he launched an incendiary attack on the gay community. Pennington clearly didn't like what he had to said. She struck back against his opinion but sloughed it off as nothing more than that: One man's opinion and not representative of anyone but that one man.

"Listen, I started in this sport a long time ago when there were barely any females and I fought some of the same women twice because there wasn't any competition," said Pennington, who is a +145 underdog at William Hill sports book. "It's always been a male-dominated sport and you still have some of those old-school thinkers. There's nothing wrong with that. The world is the way it is because everybody is in their own little world. But at the end of the day, this sport has grown. The women who are here, fighting now, we've had to fight so hard just to get here.

"I've had to battle through so much throughout my career. I've listened to so much criticism and different things. People are always going to have different opinions. Opinions are like buttholes. Everyone has one. He's another fighter. He has one. He likes to run his mouth and say all these things, but he's living in his own world. He needs to get on board with the way the world is. His words do not affect me. His life does not affect me. He's not in my everyday life so I could care less what he says or thinks."

She's confident she'll defeat Bueno Silva and win the title, but she knows she has to perform. She became a mother last year and took most of 2023 off and said it was a life-altering experience for her.

But her entire approach changed years ago, and it probably has to do with why she wasn't outraged by Strickland's broadsides. She began her career 5-5 and was on the fast track to nowhere. But she's turned it around to become one of the best in the world. She enters Saturday's bout having won five in a row and six of seven.

She didn't enjoy what she was doing when she first began. Not coincidentally, her success came when her attitude changed and she began to enjoy what she did.

"When I was 5-5, I was not having fun," she said. "There was a lot going on and I think what you have to understand is that we're in this sport for a reason. I fell in love with it. I love the challenges, but it's all about having fun. When you're having fun, that's when your maximum capabilities come out. This sport has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, and it's an emotional roller coaster.

"I got to a point where I was going through the motions and not enjoying what I was doing. Things turned around when I started to have fun. If you watch me now, you'll see I'm having a lot of fun and so you see the difference [in my record]."

Raquel Pennington (L) said she is not bothered by outrageous comments about MMA by middleweight champion Sean Strickland. 'I could care less what he says or thinks,' she said.