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Ultimate Fighting Championship bantamweight title challenger
Kayla
Harrison’s body is not reacting well to her weight cuts.
According to an interview with TMZ on Monday,
recent victor Harrison (18-1) admitted that a week before
UFC 307, she was forced to go to the hospital. The two-time
Olympic gold medalist in judo, who competed at 172 pounds in the
games and 155 pounds while in Professional Fighters League, has struggled
greatly to reach the 136-pound cap. Despite the issues, Harrison
still defeated Ketlen
Vieira on the scorecards to likely claim a shot at 135-pound
gold. It was not all sunshine and rainbows for the judoka.
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“I’m still learning, I’m still growing,” the 34-year-old told TMZ.
“I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement for me, it
definitely wasn’t my best night in the cage. There are a lot of
things that happened…I don’t like to make excuses, but I had to go
to the hospital the week before, I was peeing blood and there was
some stuff going on.”
MMA reporter Kevin Iole
remarked on Monday that the promotion was made aware of these
issues, as per her manager, Ali Abdelaziz. She was also said to
have been taking antibiotics as well. After dealing with those
issues, Harrison managed to stay on track, reach 136 pounds and win
her fight. The victorious bantamweight suggested that she might
need a little time to recuperate after this camp, however.
“I want to take a little time off…just because of the weight cut
and the process that it is for my body,” Harrison admitted. “I’m
just not built to weigh 135 pounds. Any time I get under the 150s,
it’s not pleasant…every time I do it, the first time was fear of,
‘Can I do it?’ This time, it was fear of, ‘Oh God, I have to do
it,’ the anticipation. But I’m blessed, I have such a good team,
and I’m very lucky that even my mom comes down and hangs out with
the kids, because I have to do…I’m working out like two extra hours
a day, 12 weeks out, it’s a lot.”
When asked about her in-cage condition after a harsh weight cut,
Harrison responded that she still felt comfortable and in good
shape when competing.
“I feel great the next day [after finishing the weight cut], I’m
fine,” she stated. “I mean if anything this time, I ate too much. I
am so hungry after I weigh in, I’ve been dieting for 12 weeks and
cutting my calories and then doing the water cut. So I have this,
‘I need to eat’ mentality, and I ate too much, and I actually felt
a little bit sick when I was warming up. I was…I think that’s
another reason why I was flat-footed, I just ate too much and I
have to keep the level of discipline until after the fight, and not
until after the weigh-in. I stopped a little early.”