Julianna Pena joins elite UFC club with Jon Jones, Israel Adesanya, and others

Julianna Pena pulled off a massive upset win at UFC 307 against Raquel Pennington to re-capture the women's bantamweight title. Pena was a +140 underdog heading into the fight and overcame adversity after being knocked down and hurt by Pennington several times, walking away with a split decision victory.

But winning the gritty back-and-forth battle was not her only achievement at UFC 307. Pena has now joined the elite club of UFC champions who captured the title two or more times. She is the 19th fighter in the promotion's history to achieve the feat.

MMA journalist Jed I. Goodman took to X and posted the list of multiple-time UFC champions to highlight this fact.

Check out the post below:

Reigning UFC women's flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko also pulled off a similar feat when she defeated Alexa Grasso in their Noche UFC 306 trilogy fight to win the title.

Other active UFC champions like Alex Pereira (middleweight and light heavyweight), Zhang Weili (strawweight), and Jon Jones (light heavyweight and heavyweight) are also a part of the club.

Meanwhile, former champions like Brandon Moreno and Deiveson Figueiredo (flyweight), Israel Adesanya (middleweight), Stipe Miocic (heavyweight), and Rose Namajunas (strawweight) are still active contenders in the UFC title picture, among others.

MMA pioneer and UFC legend Randy Couture is the only fighter to capture the UFC title on more than two occasions. He won the light heavyweight title twice during his UFC career and won the heavyweight belt three times.

Pena became the women's bantamweight champion by defeating Amanda Nunes at UFC 269 in one of the biggest upsets in the promotion's history. However, Nunes reclaimed the title with a dominant unanimous decision win at UFC 277.

Although the judges scored the UFC 307 contest in Pena's favor, many, including UFC CEO Dana White have criticized the judging and felt that Pennington deserved the win.