Julianna Pena: 'I made Ronda Rousey cry and I love it'

Last night on The Ultimate Fighter 18, Julianna Pena pulled off an upset in many eyes by taking out Ronda Rousey's number one pick, MMA veteran Shayna Baszler. She got off to a slow start, but was able to come back in the second to finish Baszler, which made coach Rousey pretty unhappy. In a Q&A with MMA Fighting's Shaun Al-Shatti, Pena made it quite clear how she feels about Rousey. Spoiler - she doesn't like her.

Al-Shatti: Ronda seemed to be instigating even early on, barging in on Team Tate's practice. Was there more to it than that?

Pena: There were things she was doing to piss off our team. To me, it was just very amateur hour. It was like, God, you're such a little girl. Damn, you're so dumb. It wasn't even like we were scared of her. Oh, that's such a great effect. You're kicking in the door. It's just stupid. Somebody trying so hard to get that attention. You're not cool. It backfired and made you look stupid.

She's not really a big fan of Baszler either:

Al-Shatti: You said it last week, and you said it a couple times this week: You're your own worst enemy. Did that stress alleviate or only get worse after Shayna slipped a queen of spades card down your shirt at the weigh-ins?

Pena: It was stupid. There is no magic in fighting. There's no tricks. It's a fist fight. I don't want to say it was for TV, but when they're saying, ‘I think that card she put in her shirt just got in her head' -- no! Absolutely not! If anything, it was the opposite. It just looked stupid. People do those types of things when they're getting put in a corner and they're scared. That's when they have to pull out the extras. That, to me, is like people that come out to cage wearing these big gigantic costumes and they go lose their ass. Enough with the gimmicks. I'm not buying it. There's no magic in a cage fight. So she can go ahead with her little aces of spades and shove it right up her ass.

The topic quickly went back to the women's bantamweight champion though:

Al-Shatti: Ronda got incredibly emotional afterward. Was that just for the cameras or did you guys see that too?

Pena: No, I didn't see that. But I definitely saw the dynamics change between her and Miesha after that. Obviously they've had their tiffs in the past, but for the most part, they were cordial with one another. Me and Miesha both agreed, ‘Hmmm, Ronda's being nice. This is kinda weird.' And then, bang! Right after that fight against Shayna, it flipped a switch. After that Ronda was a nightmare. She just couldn't stand the fact that I took out her No. 1 pick. And yeah, it made her cry. That's great. I made Ronda Rousey cry and I love it.

Al-Shatti: When Ronda got angry and chastised Miesha for smiling after your win, you were right there. Was Miesha doing anything disrespectful or ridiculous, or was Ronda just being dramatic?

Pena: Absolutely not. That was Ronda being a big baby. She was so upset that I won, she was trying to look for anything to use as an excuse to talk crap to Miesha. And she found it. Miesha was obviously happy for me. Miesha has competed against Shanya herself and has known Shayna for a while. Shayna is her friend. So for Ronda to be like, ‘You were laughing at my girl's pain! That's the reason why I'm going to destroy you!' It was like, again, it's just so dumb. Grow up. Miesha knows Shanya. They're friends. She's not smiling at her pain. She's happy for me. Only Ronda would twist those type of emotions into something that would make it bad. Because that's the way she thinks.