Bryan Caraway: Julianna Pena 'could be the Fedor of women's MMA'
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Bryan Caraway spent six weeks alongside the competitors at The Ultimate Fighter where he served as an assistant coach to Miesha Tate, and he lent his expertise in both training and mental preparation to the fighters having gone through the same experience himself a few seasons ago.
One fighter Caraway was very familiar with the entire time was Team Tate's top pick Julianna Pena, who he had trained with previously when all of them worked out in their home state of Washington.
Pena ended up being one of the biggest stories of the entire show after beating top pick Shayna Baszler in the quarterfinals before taking out Sarah Moras in a rematch from a fight she lost the first time a year ago.
Now Pena awaits the winner of Wednesday night's fight between Team Rousey's Jessica Rakoczy and Team Tate's Raquel Pennington, but Caraway believes the team's former top selection has even bigger goals in life and she has all the talent in the world to get there.
"Julianna in her first fight beat Shayna Baszler, I think at the time she was ranked fourth or fifth in the world. Just to come in and not only to beat the No. 1 girl in the house, but one of the top five girls in the entire world, that just tells you her potential," Caraway told The Great MMA Debate podcast on Monday.
Caraway's compliments don't stop there either, because he looks at Pena and sees a lot of the same tendencies as another famous fighter who slipped under the radar for years until he started destroying the competition as the best heavyweight in the world
