Kayla Harrison made her second UFC outing this past weekend at UFC 307, picking up a unanimous decision win against Ketlen Vieira, cementing herself as the next title challenger.
In the co-main event of the evening, Julianna Pena reclaimed her women’s bantamweight title after a controversial decision win over Raquel Pennington, and following the fight, instead of acknowledging Kayla Harrison‘s win, decided to call for Amanda Nunes to come out of retirement.
Kayla Harrison reveals she was hospitalized a week before UFC 307
Although the Olympic gold medalist picked up the win, she was openly not very pleased with her performance as she wasn’t able to completely dominate the fight.
The former PFL lightweight champion had to overcome adversity in round two when she was cut open after Ketlen Vieira landed an elbow flush with Harrison stating that Vieira is the first fighter to make her bleed.
As with Harrison’s move to the UFC, a big talking point going into her fights is about the huge weight cut she has to endure to make 136lbs.
After spending the majority of her career fighting at 155lbs, there was a huge concern from experts that with her move to the UFC, she wouldn’t be able to healthily maintain cutting that much weight on a regular basis.
Even though the 34-year-old hit the scales at 136lbs again, it came with a huge scare a week before her fight. Harrison revealed after her win that just a week out from UFC 307, she was hospitalized as she was ‘peeing blood’.
“I’m still learning, I’m still growing. I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement for me. It definitely wasn’t my best night in the cage… There was a lot of things that happened,” Harrison began to explain to TMZ Sports.
“You know, I don’t like to make excuses. I had to go to the hospital the week before, I was like peeing blood and there was some stuff going on. So I don’t like to make excuses, but I definitely wasn’t my best inside the cage on Saturday night. And I know I can be better and grow from it,” she continued.
Harrison admits she will take some time off to recover from the cut
Although Harrison has now successfully made 136lbs twice, the main concern is how long she is going to be able to maintain doing so, especially if she does realize her dream and become the UFC champion.
With the weight cut taking so much out of her, the 34-year-old isn’t able to stay as active as she may like to, and she has admitted that she will be taking some considerable time off following UFC 307 to recover from another brutal weight cut.
That may not be an issue, though, as Pena has unfortunately shown over the past few years that she isn’t concerned with staying too active, especially now that she is the champion.
“I need to take a little time off because of the weight cut and the process. Do you want the truth? I’m just not built to weigh 135 pounds. Anytime I get under the 150s, it’s not pleasant.
“The first time was fear of, ‘Can I do it?’, and this time, it was fear of like, ‘Oh God, I have to do it’, you know like the anticipation,” Harrison finished.