The only loss of Kayla Harrison’s mixed martial arts career led directly to what she considers her most significant win.
A two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo and two-time PFL tournament champion, Harrison is one of the most successful female combat sports athletes of all-time. After two bouts in the UFC, she’s ranked No. 2 and on Saturday will challenge champion Julianna Peña for the women’s bantamweight title in the co-main event of UFC 316 in Newark.
Harrison spent most of her life placing extraordinary, almost unbearable, pressure on herself to win.
When she joined the PFL after the Olympics, she made things look easy. She was 15-0 with nine first-round finishes and was never seriously challenged.
She seemed unbeatable, a one-woman wrecking crew. Then, it all came tumbling down.
An unexpected defeat to Larissa Pacheco in the 2022 PFL women’s lightweight tournament final changed not just the course of her athletic career but also her life.
“I think that [loss] did so much more for me than just as a fighter,” Harrison said. “That loss changed me as a person, in a really good way. I have two kids now; I adopted two children. I just spent so much of my life, and so much of my youth, thinking that I had to win or I was worthless.“I felt like, if I didn’t have gold medals and I didn’t have world titles that, like, I wasn’t worthy. It’s like, I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. After that loss, I came home and I was devastated.”
But she didn’t realize in the moment how much that loss would change everything.
Still devastated a few days after returning home, Harrison sat with her daughter’s therapist and asked, “Is she all right?”
Like most elite athletes, she was focused on her performance: On the loss, the failure and the fallout. Her question was nominally about her daughter’s mental health, but the therapist’s stunning answer was a revelation.
“I said, ‘How’s she doing? Is she all right? They were at the fight. Is she traumatized?’ ” Harrison said. “I was making it all about me, of course, but I was like, ‘Is she OK?’ [The therapist] asked me, ‘What do you mean?’ I was like, ‘She was at the fight. She watched me lose. This was a big deal. I lost.’ Is she OK?
“Her therapist said, ‘I asked her about the trip. She said, ‘We got to go to New York for Thanksgiving. We had pizza. We went to Central Park. But my Mom had a fight. She lost, but then we went out to dinner at this other place. Then we went to the Empire State Building.’ She doesn’t care. She doesn’t give a shit.”
Those words — “She doesn’t give a shit” — were a profound shock to Harrison.
That realization, she insists, was the most important win of her life.
“[Hearing that], I was like, ‘Oh. My. God,’ ” Harrison said. “That may sound surreal to some people, but it was a light bulb moment in my life. I realized they don’t care if I win or lose or if I have a UFC belt or a gold medal or a this or a that. They just care about Mom. That changed who I am.
“It changed how I fight. It changed how I approached life. I no longer operate from that space of fear or unworthiness. I fight because I love it, because I want to, and I want to see how high I can climb. It’s made me better.”
That has shown in her first two UFC fights. She was brilliant in dismantling Holly Holm at UFC 300, putting on a clinic in what might be the performance of a lifetime.
She wasn’t at her best against Ketlen Vieira at UFC 307, having spent time in the hospital during fight week, but still won the fight going away.
It’s a testament to her talent that she won a no-doubt decision on a night when so much went wrong.
“All of those things played a factor,” she said when asked if her performance was due to Vieira, her hospital stay or something else. “The elevation [in Salt Lake City was difficult], physical stuff and Ketlen prepared very well. I watched the fight back and it’s hard to make stuff happen when you’re fighting a very defensive fighter.
“It all played a role, but it is what it is and I realized that I have a lot of things to work on. I needed to figure out how I could be better for the next go-round and I’m grateful for that. I need that. I can’t expect to just go out and win in spectacular fashion every time. I need to be pushed. I need to be challenged, and that made me an even better fighter.”
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Kayla Harrison was dominant in a UFC 300 win over Holly Holm.
That improved mindset will be put to the ultimate test Saturday in Newark, N.J., where she enters as an overwhelming favorite to defeat Peña and take the title.
At DraftKings, she’s minus-600, meaning a bettor would have to risk $600 to earn a $100 profit. Peña is plus-440, meaning a $100 bet on the champion would return a $440 profit.
Peña’s made a career of defying the odds and won the title as a better than 11-1 underdog by submitting Amanda Nunes.
Peña’s brash and enters with the confidence of knowing she’s gotten a win over the woman widely regarded as the greatest female MMA fighter ever. She also gave Nunes hell in their rematch, though Nunes won and regained the belt.
Peña’s speculated publicly that the thickly muscled Harrison is using performance enhancing drugs to build herself up and suggested it’s a sign of weakness.
If she’s trying to play mind games, though, Harrison’s probably not the best target. Harrison said she’s a different fighter than Nunes.
“Look, Julianna’s best attribute is that she’s got a lot of heart,” Harrison said in one of the more low-key burns you’ll ever hear. “She is a fighter. That’s who she is. But honey, so am I. I thrive. I thrive under the pressure and I thrive under the bright lights. I know I’m the best in the world and that this is my moment.”
She’s looked defeat squarely in the eyes and said, ‘You ain’t so tough.’ And while winning is extremely important to her, learning that it’s not everything has freed her.
It’s that freedom that makes her scary and, she believes, in a few days, will make her the UFC champion.