Kayla Harrison will have to shed a lot of weight before she makes her octagon debut at UFC 300 but Dana White isn’t sweating it.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo and two-time PFL champion signed with the UFC in free agency and she’ll make her first appearance in a fight against Holly Holm on April 13. Harrison inked a deal with the UFC to compete at bantamweight — a division she’s never fought at previously and has stated numerous times that it would be an arduous journey if she attempted that weight cut.
Well, the UFC CEO has no real concerns, especially after revealing during an Instagram Live session that Harrison has already undergone several test cuts and UFC 300 won’t be the first time she’s actually made the bantamweight limit.
“She’s already made 135 a couple of times,” White said late Wednesday night.
Harrison previously told MMA Fighting that she kept the door open to a potential fight at bantamweight but acknowledged it wouldn’t be easy.
“I mean 135 will challenge me in ways like I’m going to have to lose a piece of me to be able to fight at 135 pounds,” Harrison said this past November. “I think just structurally, I carry a lot of muscle. I’m already kind of lean, so I’m going to have to lose muscle. I’m going to have to change my entire lifestyle. I mean I have already done that to fight at 145.
“It’s crazy what happens when you take care of your body and eat properly and sleep and recover. I was a knucklehead when I was younger. But I have faith whatever is meant to be, will be.”
If Harrison wanted to fight in the UFC, moving to 135 pounds was really her only option.
The promotion effectively shuttered the women’s featherweight division after Amanda Nunes announced her retirement this past June and relinquished the 145-pound title. The weight class really didn’t exist in the UFC outside of a couple of fights here or there to continue feeding contenders to Nunes.
Once she retired, the UFC just shut the door on promoting those fights.
Harrison has actually only fought at featherweight once in her career — a brief one-fight stint with Invicta FC during the global pandemic — but outside of that she’s spent the majority of her fights at 155 pounds. Harrison actually won both of her gold medals in the Olympics at 78 kilograms, which translates to just under 172 pounds.
Now she’ll make the cut all the way down to 135 pounds for her debut as she clashes with a former champion in Holm in a marquee matchup on the historic UFC 300 card in April.
