LAS VEGAS -- Kayla Harrison is like so many of us. She loves food. She especially loves the foods that are the worst for us and put on weight we neither want nor need.
If you know anything about Harrison, though, you know she's really nothing like the rest of us. She's an elite professional athlete whose resume is long as Tyson Fury's left arm: Olympic gold medals in 2012 and 2016 at 78 kilograms, which is 172 pounds. A gold and two bronzes in the judo world championships. Two golds at the Pan-American Games.
Two titles at lightweight for the Professional Fighters League, and a 16-1 record in the only mixed martial arts promotion she's ever competed in.
She's not like us. Too many of us have trouble running the bases in the weekend beer league softball game, let alone competing at the highest level of sport like she's done her entire adult life.
Harrison, though, has been hounded by questions this week about her weight, as she embarks on an incredible challenge. She'll make her UFC debut on Saturday at UFC 300 against former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at T-Mobile Arena. The key is that she needs to be at 136 pounds, or 36 pounds later than she was when she won her Olympic gold medals, when she steps onto the scales at Friday's weigh-in.
When she walked into UFC Apex on Tuesday, many who knew her did a double take. One person joked, "You're half the person you used to be," because of the incredible transformation of her body. She was reportedly within 10 pounds of making the weight and it appears she'll hit 136 with no issues.
She laughs off all the concerns about her weight, and while a lot of hard work was a part of it, there's a side to it that might shock you.
"I just changed what I ate," Harrison told KevinIole.com. "I was eating all of those things that I loved. But I got on the right diet and I'm getting great, delicious meals that are fueling me and getting me prepared the way I need to be and it's come off."
No one around her has had doubts that she'd make it, and while she has to officially do it, she looks like a different person already. Her goal, she has said repeatedly, has always been to be the UFC champion and so a bout with Holm is the first step into making that a reality. She's gotten the attention of her peers and bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington, a humble, easy-going sort, stoked a bit of a controversy when she suggested Harrison would cut the line for a title shot because of her name. Harrison, of course, fired back.
😂😂😂 ya that’s it, I’m shaking in my boots…NOT!!! Simple advocate for the other women in the division who have been in the UFC longer but let me make it clear…I fear no one! 💪🏼🏆 #TeamRocky pic.twitter.com/bq9ThAwS5N
— Raquel Pennington (@RockyPMMA) April 6, 2024
Harrison, though, could be the jolt that revitalizes the women's bantamweight division, which is in kind of a lull. Everything is cyclical, and there was a time that the UFC's women's bantamweight division was one of its hottest classes. Ronda Rousey was the champion, future champions Holm, Miesha Tate, Amanda Nunes and Julianna Peña were competing and the Top 10 was crammed with elite talent.
It's not exactly as deep as it was back in the day, so Harrison's addition is a much-needed boost. Harrison, though, dismisses talk of her becoming a superstar as easily as she does questions about her bid to make the division's non-title limit of 136 pounds
She's compared to Rousey because they both were in judo and transitioned to MMA, but that's where the comparisons stop. Rousey lost her belt to Holm in 2015 and has been retired for more than seven years. Harrison didn't fight until after Rousey had been out of MMA for well over a year.
Her manager, Ali Abdelaziz, is her biggest cheerleader, and he stoked the fires about her potential stardom in a conversation last week with KevinIole.com. She's often been compared to Ronda Rousey, who is one of the UFC's greatest stars in addition to Conor McGregor, George St-Pierre, Randy Couture, Tito Ortiz, Jon Jones and Khabib Nurmagomedov.
"She will be one of the biggest stars if she does what she has to do against Holly Holm," Abdelaziz said of Harrison. "She’s very tough, very seasoned. She’ll go there and smash [Holm]. She’ll get a title shot, and become a UFC champion. [When she does, we] will have a Ronda Rousey on steroids. This is what we have.”
She's ready to go and forge her path and eschews comparisons to Rousey. If she turns into a popular attraction, so be it. But her goal is gold.
"I'm already having fun," she said at media day Wednesday. "The work is done. The hay is in the barn. I get to do this. This is a thing that I chose to do. Like, I'm not sitting behind a desk, I'm not,I don't know, a nurse. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. This is my job. I'm a fighter. This is what I chose to do and I'm very blessed to do it.
"And even the shitty parts, it's all a part of the journey and it's all shaping me, molding me and forming me into the best version of myself. So this is all fun for me."
If Harrison is to become another star a la Rousey, McGregor and others, she'll have to handle Holm on Saturday and not only win her fights, but command attention from outside of just the hard-core fan base that watched MMA. Rousey helped grow the UFC and MMA in generally to where it is now, and so it's this generation's gig to take it to another level.
Harrison is confident she has what it takes inside the ring to be a star. She'll let the public determine, though, if she's that one-of-a-kind star who comes along once a decade or so.
"I'm not comparing myself to anyone or anything," she said. "I'm my own person. I have my own path. I just try and keep walking it every day, one foot in front of the other, and the goal is not to be a star. I mean, look, of course everyone wants to be a star. The goal is not to be a star; the goal is to be UFC champion and be so f*cking good you can't ignore me, and then then to use this platform to change the world how I want to,
"There's a steps to it. And really, being a star isn't a piece of it. It's something that I guess everyone wants to talk about, but I just want to be so good that you guys have no choice but to call me the Queen."