Julianna Pena Is Trading the Octagon for a Wrestling Mat: What Her Real American Freestyle Debut Means
Julianna Pena has not competed in 17 months. When she does again, it will not be in a cage.
Real American Freestyle announced Monday that the former two-time UFC women’s bantamweight champion will make her freestyle wrestling debut against Diana Avsaragova at RAF Abu Dhabi on Saturday, November 14, at Etihad Arena. She is listed at middleweight.
From the Booth to the Mat
The unusual part is where Pena has been in the meantime. She has worked as a color commentator for RAF since the promotion launched, which makes this a move from the broadcast desk to competition rather than a straight career pivot.
Fighters who take analyst jobs usually do it on the way out. Pena appears to have done it on the way to something else.
Her Last Fight Was a Title Loss
Pena’s most recent appearance was at UFC 316 in June 2025, where she lost the bantamweight championship to Kayla Harrison by second-round kimura.
That was the end of her second reign. The first began with one of the biggest upsets in the sport’s history, when she submitted Amanda Nunes in December 2021 to take the belt.
A 17-month layoff at this stage of a career is usually the prelude to an announcement nobody wants to make. Instead she booked a wrestling match.
The Opponent
Diana Avsaragova is a Bellator and PFL veteran. She lost by technical fall to reigning RAF middleweight champion Kennedy Blades at RAF 13 in September.
That result is worth weighing carefully in both directions. A technical fall loss to the champion suggests a significant gap against elite freestyle wrestlers. It also means Avsaragova has actual mat experience in this format, which Pena does not.
The Card Around It
RAF Abu Dhabi is stacked with crossover names. Colby Covington faces Khamzat Chimaev in a cruiserweight title match, which is a sentence that would have been science fiction two years ago. Abdulrashid Sadulaev meets Dauren Kurugliev, and Zahid Valencia faces Khidir Saipudinov.
The promotion’s only public comment on the Pena booking was a post on X reading, “THE CARD KEEPS GETTING BETTER.”
Pena herself has not issued a statement about the match.
What This Actually Is
Freestyle wrestling and MMA wrestling are related the way sprinting and hurdling are related. Pena built her UFC career on grappling pressure, scrambles and submission threats, none of which score points in freestyle.
She is a 36-year-old former champion stepping into a discipline she has never competed in professionally, against someone who has. The likely outcome is that she loses and it does not matter much.
What makes it interesting is that she is doing it at all. Real American Freestyle has spent its first year recruiting names from combat sports to legitimize a format that has struggled to find a professional audience in the United States for 50 years. Getting a two-time UFC champion to actually compete rather than just commentate is the strongest signal yet that the model is working.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
