Kayla Harrison is planning to have a big 2026.
In June, Harrison won the UFC bantamweight title, submitting Julianna Peña in the second round at UFC 316. The victory was a long time coming for the two-time Olympic gold medalist and set up a long-awaited fight with former champion Amanda Nunes, who was in attendance at UFC 316. And while that fight has yet to be officially booked, Harrison teased that it will happen very soon.
“There’s a fight on the horizon,” Harrison told Jorge Masvidal on his Death Row podcast. “… I can’t say that. It’s not booked yet. It’s a fight that we all want to see happen, and it’s going to happen sooner rather than later. Before [the UFC White House card]. My perfect world, I fight soon, and then I fight again at the White House. But for sure, I’m going to be on the White House card. I’m the only American champion currently.”
Harrison and Nunes were briefly teammates at American Top Team, but Nunes left the gym once Harrison arrived, saying she knew the two would fight one day. It was heavily rumored that Harrison was going to join the UFC in 2022 to make that fight happen, but then Nunes lost to Julianna Peña, and Harrison re-signed with PFL for another two years.
Now, almost four years later, it seems the two will finally meet up inside the cage, and Harrison intends to make short work of her before, hopefully, setting her sights on another all-time great.
“For sure, I’m not done,” Harrison said when asked if Nunes would be her last fight. “I’m going to whoop her ass real quick and — I mean, in my perfect world, Valentina [Shevchenko] beats [Zhang] Weili and we do like a U.S.A. vs. Russia, Rocky IV style.”
Shevchenko is not Russian, but Kyrgyz and Peruvian, and when Masvidal informed Harrison of this, she continued on anyway.
“Whatever. She looks like a Russian assassin,” Harrison said. “She looks like a Russian spy, so I think that would be good. Or everybody been talking about how Ronda [Rousey] is coming back, so that would be great.
“Or whoever is next in line. I literally don’t care. I’ll fight anybody.”
Shevchenko defends her flyweight title against former strawweight champion Zhang Weili next week at UFC 322 in New York. Rousey, meanwhile, has not competed since losing to Amanda Nunes in 2016, and recently shot down any talk of a possible comeback.
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