Raquel Pennington was sick when she fought Mayra Bueno Silva

Newly crowned women’s bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington captured the title by defeating Mayra Bueno Silva in the UFC 297 co-main event.  On Tuesday, Pennington revealed that she was sick during the championship bout.  

“I woke up super sick that morning.  I kind of questioned everything,” Pennington told UFC Unfiltered.  “I had a great fight week.  Things were going alright, going well.  When we first started to travel to Canada I started getting a little sick and I was like, okay.  So I called the UFC and asked them when I could take and stuff to kind of get things under control.  I think just going through the weight cut and breaking down my body I woke up so sick.

“The morning of the fight I was actually on the treadmill sprinting.  I felt like I had razor blades in the back of my throat, so I was really nervous to go into a five-round fight,” continued Pennington.  “I’m prepared.  I’m conditioned but then having a cold on top of that, not really able to breath, so much pressure in my sinuses already.  Waking up and having a headache.  To think of going into a fight with a headache really freaked me out.” 

“Rocky” entered the fight not feeling well, but was able to win via unanimous decision and take home the vacant belt.    

“My muscles felt really fatigued.  You know how like you’re starting to get sick and you have like those body aches and everything going on,” she explained.  “I told my coaches, ‘this is going to hurt.’  I had the body aches and stuff going on and I’m getting ready to go get into a fight.  I don’t know how many times I told them, ‘this is going to hurt.'”