Kayla Harrison will need to do something she’s never done before to fight for a UFC title this weekend—make the bantamweight championship limit of 135 pounds.
Harrison had never competed at bantamweight prior to signing with the UFC last year. There were doubts about her ability to drop to a lower weight class, but she eased those concerns by successfully weighing in at 136 pounds for both of her UFC bouts—against Holly Holm and Ketlen Vieira.
With a UFC title on the line in her co-main event clash against Julianna Peña at UFC 316, the one-pound allowance no longer applies. That means the pressure is on the former Olympic gold medalist to go the extra mile during fight week to make championship weight.
“I think it’s overblown,” Harrison said this week during an interview with MMA Fighting. “I’ve been very disciplined, and I have an excellent team around me, and we have body fat check-ins and calorie check-ins and water and like, there’s a sweet science to it. And I’m right on track, and I trust God and I trust the process, and we’re all going to see (on Friday).”
The vast majority of Harrison’s fights outside the UFC took place at 155 pounds—the weight class in which she won PFL world titles in 2019 and 2021. While she acknowledges that dropping two weight classes isn’t ideal, she’s come to terms with it and is prepared to make the sacrifice.
“I don’t believe in weight cutting, I don’t believe that this is the best decision for me, but I do believe that the sacrifice is worth the reward,” Harrison explained. “It’s not ever something I wanted to do, like, there’s no beating around the bush with that. It’s not fun, it’s not enjoyable, it’s not pleasant, but I have an internal drive and a a goal, and I want to see how high I can climb, and I do feel like It’s all part of my journey,
“Back before I signed with UFC like, where was I going to go? What was I going to do? I was scared. I’d never made the weight before, and I asked God to help me grow, and he put a hell of a challenge in front of me. I’ve always been a disciplined athlete, but I’ve never been super disciplined about what I eat. It’s not a secret. I won the Olympics on Pizza Rolls and Diet Coke and Oreos.
“I moved away from home at a young age. I mean, I was 15 when I moved to Boston, and I was living in a judo house, and nutrition wasn’t as important, I would say, back then in those years as it is now. So this is an opportunity for me to grow and be even more disciplined and be refined in the fire.”
