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UFC fighter Sam Sicilia trains at the same gym as first ever female Ultimate Fighter winner Julianna Pena and he's calling for people to pump the breaks on some of the more extreme stories of what happened to the WMMA star. Pena was forced out of her bout at UFC 171 after suffering a horrific knee injury at her gym, tearing almost every part of her knee as well as her hamstring.
Dana White claimed that Pena was attacked in her gym during the UFC 169 media scrum:
"...she was training in her gym and one of her training partners, a guy, was saying to her, ‘oh, you’re wearing your Ultimate Fighter shirt, we’re real scared.’ He says that and was talking smack to her and then basically attacked her."
"He jumped on her back, started cranking her neck, and the way she fell her knee blew out. The most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. A year-and-a-half to two years she’ll be out, and I told her to leave that disgusting gym and go somewhere else with new coaches, new training partners, whatever. And that’s all I know."
Sicilia told Bleacher Report a much different story:
"No, she wasn't assaulted," Sicilia told Bleacher Report. "I guess she was at the gym, just lifting, and she went from there to go grapple. I don’t know if she didn’t warm up or what her deal was, but the guy she goes with, he’s one of those little 35 pounders, and I guess they were just training, and he had her up against the cage and then jumped on her back to get his hooks in. I think she went for a switch or something, and it was just bad. He’s a little power pellet, you know? So, he’s a little buff guy. I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard it from everybody—what happened. It definitely wasn’t assault or anything like that."
It sounds like the more extreme tale of some back jumping, neck cranking, knee wrecking anti-TUF jerk may not have been inline with reality.
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