Julianna Peña has some important advice for female fighters: always stay natural inside the cage.
UFC Denver's main event flyweight bout between Rose Namajunas and Tracy Cortez went viral after a shocking punch from Namajunas blew Cortez's false eyelashes off her face. Namajunas won by decision after five rounds, but the bizarre moment continued to buzz on social media after the bout.
Peña, a former bantamweight champion who hopes to compete for UFC gold again soon, spoke about his experience with facial cosmetics and why he never uses them on fight day.
“As you know, hair and makeup are my specialties,” Peña said. MMA Hour“I love, love, love, love, love. I got fake eyelashes done while I was training. They're fake eyelash extensions, so they stick on each individual lash. When one broke, it pierced my eyeball and I was in more pain than I've ever been in in my life. That's why I'm a strip girl. I only wear strip lashes. I just put them on and take them off every time. I don't wear them while I'm training. That's why I don't wear them while I'm competing. That's why I don't wear fake lashes.”
“Now, I don't know how or why some of these girls are doing it, or maybe they haven't had enough experience with it yet that they think they can keep fighting with false eyelash extensions and get away with it. But as we saw, it just flew by.”
The circumstances that led to Cortez's defective eyelashes are puzzling to Peña, and he wonders why she was so effusive in her praise of the technician who applied her extensions on social media.
Peña did his best to guess where the flyweight contender went wrong.
“I saw them all fly off,” Peña said. “How could that happen? I think something must have happened. She must have just taken the extensions off that one eye and quickly covered it with real lashes, because I saw them all fly off. If they weren't extensions, then her lash extension technique isn't that good, because I saw them all fly off. There's no way a few would come off and stick themselves in your eye. They all flew off.”
“Anyway, ladies, if you're listening, please don't fight with your eyelash extensions on. It's a big no-no.”
When asked whether it should be up to the committee to prevent such incidents from happening in the future, Peña disagreed that such makeup decisions need public oversight, saying she hopes other women use common sense when deciding how much makeup they need to wear for a match.
“I don't think eyelash extensions will become popular. [they inspect]”Can you imagine them coming in there and saying, 'Is this real? Is this yours?'” Peña said.
“No mascara, no eyelash extensions. You're a warrior, you're a barbarian. This is like the days of the gladiators.”
