Kayla Harrison thought about hanging up the gloves at UFC 316.
A two-time Olympic Gold Medalist in judo and PFL champion, Kayla Harrison is now the UFC women’s bantamweight champion after submitting Julianna Peña in the co-main event of UFC 316.
Peña was half the battle as Harrison, the former PFL lightweight champion, had to undergo a strict 15-week diet to make the championship weight of 135lbs on Friday morning.
Harrison also said she covered 6 miles (8 miles on Sundays) every day for 14 straight weeks, consisting of running, walking, swimming, and biking.
By Friday morning weigh-ins, Harrison was ‘skin and bones’ for her first UFC title fight, one she considered to be her last.
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Kayla Harrison contemplated retirement at UFC 316 because of dreadful weight cut
A week removed from her ‘torture’ weight cut to 135lbs, the newly-crowned Harrison reveals she was thinking about walking away from the sport.
“I’m not gonna lie to you. Friday morning, I thought about retiring on Saturday night,” Harrison told Luke Thomas.
“It takes a piece of your soul,” Harrison said of her cut to bantamweight.
“It takes a piece out of you, but it also builds a piece of you that, again, I’ve been talking about it. I will never be able to do it justice or explain it. I don’t have the words for it.
“But, yeah, I’ll know when it’s done,” Harrison said of MMA retirement.
“I’ll know when it’s time [to retire].”
Kayla Harrison ‘wide open’ to featherweight fight with Amanda Nunes
While the reigning bantamweight champion of the world, Harrison says she wouldn’t mind going up a weight class to fight the returning Amanda Nunes, the consensus greatest female fighter of all time.
Former teammates Harrison and Nunes faced off in the Octagon following the UFC 316 co-main event for what could be the biggest fight in women’s MMA history.
Nunes fought at 135 lbs and 145 lbs in her UFC career and you don’t have to ask Harrison twice about a fight at featherweight instead.
“Yes, absolutely,” Harrison said of a potential fight with Nunes at 145lbs.
“With arms wide open…”
Harrison used to compete at 172lbs during her judo career and fought at 155lbs in the PFL. Harrison has only fought once at 145lbs, back in 2020.