Kayla
Harrison’s championship victory might have been a best-case
scenario for the UFC.
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The two-time Olympic gold medalist was dominant in the UFC 316
main event, as she submitted Julianna
Pena with a second-round kimura to capture the women’s
bantamweight crown on Saturday at the Prudential Center in Newark,
New Jersey. That sets up a high-profile showdown with former
two-division champion Amanda
Nunes, who entered the Octagon to square off against Harrison
after the bout.
Nunes is going to be making her return in the near future after a
retirement that has lasted two years.
„Listen, I’m going to give Amanda as much time to prepare, I want
her to be the best her,“ Harrison said at the UFC 316 post-fight
press conference. „I’m going to be the best me, and we’re going to
go in there and make absolute magic in the UFC women’s division.
We’re going to break some records and make some history. We’re both
going to make a lot of money doing it, and we’re going to bring
women’s MMA to a whole new level.”
Before coming to the
UFC, Harrison was a champion in
Professional Fighters League, where she competed at both 155
and 145 pounds. The biggest question regarding her transition to
the UFC was her ability to make the bantamweight limit. Thus far,
she’s been successful on three separate occasions — including
making 135 on the nose for her championship date with Pena.
Harrison admits that it’s not getting any easier.
“I would have chopped off my leg to make it to this fight,”
Harrison said of the weight cut. “There are moments in your life
where you have a choice, right? You have a choice to say, ‘I quit,’
or you have a choice to dig in your heels and Thursday night was
definitely one of those moments for me where I really wanted to be
anywhere else on Earth than in that sauna.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it sucks ass. It’s not pretty, but
it’s in those moments when you’re true character comes out and
you’re forged and I’ve been forged in the fire, literally. [UFC
CEO] Dana [White] and I were joking about it, I might be
unbreakable. You can’t kill me, I’m kind of like a cockroach, you
can’t get rid of me. And again, I give all of that to God. He’s
made me a hell of a weapon.”
With that in mind, Harrison was asked about the possibility of her
showdown against Nunes taking place at 145 pounds. The
newly-crowned bantamweight queen is open to all possibilities —
just as long as the fight happens.
““I just want to fight. I definitely want to fight Amanda. She’s
the greatest of all time, I want to be the greatest of all time,
I’ve wanted that for a long time now,” Harrison said. “It’s not
personal, there’s no bad blood. I don’t care what weight we fight
at. I walk around at a hundred and—I’m not even going to tell you
guys what I walk around at. Never mind.”