UFC's Julianna Pena was 'very, very heartbroken' after loss to Valentina Shevchenko

Julianna Pena embraced the hurt of her first UFC loss, and after coming out on the other end, she said she’s going to be a better fighter for it.

After starting her octagon tenure with four-straight victories, including winning Season 18 of “The Ultimate Fighter” reality series, Pena (8-3 MMA, 4-1 UFC) ran into a roadblock in the form of top women’s bantamweight contender Valentina Shevchenko (14-2 MMA, 3-1 UFC).

Pena was not able to hang with Shevchenko during their UFC on FOX 23 main event bout in January. After being tossed around the cage more than once, Pena was caught in a second-round armbar by “The Bullet” and forced to tap out. Shevchenko moved forward and will challenge 135-pound champ Amanda Nunes at UFC 213 in July, leaving Pena behind to reflect on the missed opportunity.

“When you (lose), and you give it your all, it feels like a death,” Pena said today during a fan Q&A ahead of UFC Fight Night 111 in Singapore. “I was very, very heartbroken. I felt like my world came crashing down. I think the most important thing is, you can’t get married to your wins and you can’t get married to your losses. One day you feel like you’re on top of the world then the next day the world is on top of you. You have to take your wins and losses in stride and just keep moving forward.”

Prior to the loss, Pena, No. 3 in the latest USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings had put together a nice run of performances, with the signature one coming against former title challenger Cat Zingano at UFC 200.

“The Venezuelan Vixen” was confident her momentum would plow through Shevchenko, but was handed a reality check. Even though she originally chalked up the outcome to a comparison that even “Michael Jordan missed shots,” in hindsight, Pena feels she may have put too much on her plate around the time of the most important fight of her career.

Not only did Pena move away from her longtime training home in Washington in order to relocate to Chicago, but she said she didn’t give herself nearly enough time to get acclimated to her new surroundings. Nearly six months have gone by since her previous bout, though, and Pena said she’s used that time put her life in order, as well as recover from some lingering injuries.

“I’ve actually been in physical therapy to get back to training and that’s where my focus has been since January, is just trying to get back into the training room and doing things that I normally do,” Pena said. “I had moved to Chicago in September and going to a city I’ve never been to before and changing my entire camp with my coaches and everything and getting thrown into that mix before the biggest fight of my entire life, was I think a big change.

“I’ve taken this time from January to now to get to know the city, get to know my routes, get to know everything so that when I prepare for my fight next time, I’ll have everything a lot better tuned. I think that’s part of the learning process in mixed martial arts. If you lose, you go back to the drawing board and figure out what went wrong and try again.”

Although Pena doesn’t know when she will return to the octagon, or against whom, she has already mentioned the possibility of a change in weight class. She is currently ranked in the top three at women’s bantamweight, but with the UFC recently introducing a new women’s flyweight division, a drop down is a possibility in Pena’s future.

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.