By the time Raquel Pennington was done at UFC 297, Mayra Bueno Silva could barely get off the mat, and that’s why the American is the new women’s bantamweight champion.
Pennington defeated Bueno Silva by unanimous decision on Toronto to capture the bantamweight belt vacated by Amanda Nunes at UFC 289 in June. The title is a reward for the bantamweight division’s greatest stalwart, with a record 18 fights at the weight and a six-fight win streak.
Bueno Silva began the fight as the aggressor, taking Pennington’s back for multiple minutes in a high-energy round one. The direction of the fight was reversed in the second round, when Pennington stunned Bueno Silva with a combo and stayed in control in a close fram.
The fatigue really started setting in for Bueno Silva in the third round and got worse from there. She tried to burn off time on her back, but that didn’t help her on the cards. Pennington had a chance to finish the fight in the fifth with an arm triangle and it appeared Bueno Silva was about to tap out until she managed to find just enough room to escape.
The fight ended, again, with Bueno Silva on her back and getting loudly booed by the Scotiabank Arena crowd.
