While Kayla
Harrison is irked by Julianna
Pena’s accusations of performance enhancing drug use, she is
taking it as a compliment.
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Pena is expected to challenge Raquel
Pennington for the women’s bantamweight title at UFC 307
in Salt Lake City, Utah in October. Meanwhile, Harrison, who made
her promotional debut with a submission win over Holly Holm at
UFC
300 this past April, is considered to be the top contender for
the next shot at the title.
Pena recently hurled accusations of PED use at Harrison and
all female fighters in the ex-PFL champion’s gym,
American Top Team. While PED allegations are nothing new for
Harrison, the two-time Olympic gold medallist judoka can’t help
being annoyed. Harrison claims to have been tested for the first
time at 12 years of age and has never since failed a single drug
test. Harrison claims Pena’s allegations are a built-in excuse for
when she beats “The Venezuelan Vixen” in their potential clash in
the future.
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“It blows my mind that… It pisses me off. No. 1 it pisses me off
because never once have I tested positive for anything, ever, in
the history of my very long drug-testing career,” Harrison said on
“The MMA Hour.”
“And No. 2, don’t f—-ing say things like that if you don’t have
hard evidence. That’s a serious thing to talk about, to me. I take
cheating very seriously. And I have always competed clean. I carry
myself to a high standard, and I know that I haven’t always
competed against people who were clean, but I’m not going to throw
accusations out just because I feel like I think they’re not clean.
That’s bulls—t, and I think it’s bulls—t because she’s just
building in an excuse for when I whoop her ass. So, I’m annoyed by
it, and at the same time, what a compliment. I’m 100% natty and you
all think I’m on steroids.”
Pena had also called out Harrison for not attending an anti-doping
“thing” at International Fight Week last month. Harrison explained
why she was exempted from attending what she claims was a “stupid
info commercial.” Harrison seemingly didn’t find it very important
to begin with, having been tested consistently throughout her
career — sometimes too frequently. Harrison further claimed to have
been engaged by the UFC on another assignment related to her being
the face of the division.
“I got drug tested four times in the span of one month [at one
point]… And that’s also why I didn’t stay for the stupid info
commercial for drug testing,” Harrison said. “Unlike her I actually
have fans. So I had something I had to go do that the UFC had asked
me to do. So, it’s hard to be the ‘it’ girl, the new face of the
weight class. So I didn’t have to stay for the [drug testing info
commercial]… We told them [the UFC], they knew. There was like
scheduling… You know how it is with [that]…”