UFC women’s bantamweight contender Julianna Pena wants not only to become the champion, but take over the leading role former champ Ronda Rousey once played in the sport.

“There’s more than one girl MMA fighter out there,” Pena (8-2 MMA, 4-0 UFC) told MMAjunkie in advance of her UFC on FOX 23 headliner opposite Valentina Shevchenko (13-2 MMA, 2-1 UFC).

It drove Pena crazy to see Rousey command most of the spotlight for women’s MMA. She had a rivalry with the ex-champ stemming from their time together on “The Ultimate Fighter 18,” where Pena beat Rousey’s close friend and training partner Shayna Baszler. She thought Rousey purposely avoided talking about her so as to minimize her presence in the public eye.

While Pena desperately wanted to make Rousey pay for her behavior, she foresaw the ex-champ’s defeat to champ Amanda Nunes at UFC 207 and looks forward to establishing herself as a different kind of champ.

“It’s a new era now, and I’m ready to take over that spot – the new era of girls who are tough as (expletive) and ready to put it on the line and fight whoever and wherever at any time,” Pena said.

Before Rousey announced her comeback to the sport, Pena had no intention of fighting Shevchenko, a kickboxing specialist who notched the biggest win of her career to date with a decision victory over Holly Holm, the woman who took Rousey’s title in 2015 (before losing it to Miesha Tate). Why, she argued, would she take another fight when Nunes had agreed to fight her on Twitter?

In a previous interview with MMAjunkie, her longtime coach Rick Little made an impassioned defense of Pena’s choice to turn down a fight with Shevchenko at UFC 205 and why a title shot was the only proper choice. Just one month ago, she told ESPN.com she was unhappy about the matchup and threatened to quit the UFC if she didn’t get a title shot with a win over Shevchenko.

But Pena said she always wanted to fight the top-ranked Russian. She was just holding out for a title shot when Rousey’s comeback was still in question.

“Why was I going to take another fight with somebody else who was calling me out, who needed me, as opposed to just fighting for the title right away, since I’ve been beating everybody?” Pena said. “Once Ronda came back, then I agreed that I wanted the fight, and that it makes sense for me.”

Pena, the No. 2 fighter in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie MMA women’s bantamweight rankings, finds it curious that, despite a 2-1 record in the octagon and a loss to Nunes, Shevchenko resides above her in the UFC’s official top-15 list.

“All I know is that in wrestling rankings, when you win, you go up in the rankings, and somehow I manage to go down,” she said.

But that’s nothing new for the “TUF 18” veteran, who said she’s been an underdog in every one of her UFC fights. She has the same attitude for Shevchenko as all of her other opponents.

“I bite down on mouthpiece and get in a fist fight,” Pena said. “The most I can do is know that I’m ready.”

Pena will be fighting at altitude when she meets Shevchenko in the FOX-televised main event of Saturday’s card, which takes place in Denver at Pepsi Center. She flew out early from her native Washington to get ready to combat the effects of diminished oxygen. When she gave her interview, she was in the middle of a hike up Red Rocks Park outside of the city.

She admitted she felt sad about watching Rousey decimated by Nunes, but also sees her rival as a cautionary tale about how to wield the power that comes from popularity.

“When you’re doing good, it’s always a check for yourself to be a good person and do right by people and not screw people over and to think that you’re holier than thou,” Pena said. “At one point, Ronda claimed I didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as Shayna Baszler, and I’ve just always made a point never to think I’m better than any other person.”

Pena would still like to make Rousey pay, and of course would love the payday that would accompany a fight with the star. But she said MMA fans are ready for a change at the top. Even in this increasingly polarized world, she thinks to see a different kind of star emerge.

“I think people want to see girls with brown hair too,” she said.

For more on UFC on FOX 23, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.

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