Recently, the conversation of Kayla Harrison in the UFC has been a popular topic in the MMA sphere. It all started when Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White claimed he wasn’t sure if the Professional Fighters League superstar and two-time Olympic gold medalist was ready to compete in the Octagon. It was an opinion the defending PFL women’s lightweight champion did not agree with. And since the headline dust up, White has adjusted his stance on the topic a bit.
Harrison, who trains at American Top Team with UFC two-weight champion Amanda Nunes, has received criticism for the lack of tough competition she’s faced in the PFL. While Nunes on the other hand continues to lay waste to all her competition and has fans calling for a tougher challenger to arrive. With all of that in mind, MixedMartialArts.com’s Mike Pendleton and Jason Burgos took a side to debate the question of is Kayla Harrison UFC ready right now?
Who do you think has the better case? Let us know forum mob!
This entire post could have been summed up in about 3 sentences. She’s great, has the skills to compete in the UFC, but competes at a weight that doesn’t really exist in the UFC. Before you go all but but but the UFC has a 145 pound division…not really, and not anymore. With Cyborg no longer being with the company, and the UFC electing not to re-sign Megan Anderson, there isn’t a single fighter on the roster who can’t make 135.
So sure…bring her to the UFC if she can consistently make 145 and you want to see her fight 135 pound fighters…and if she beats Holly Holm, GDR and some other 135er, we can see her fight Amanda…and if she loses, she won’t be kept around, and if she wins we’ll see her fight 135ers until she eventually loses and won’t be kept.
She’s incredibly talented, but the UFC doesn’t have other fighters her size.
Well…if you look at the UFCs rankings, there’s a total of 3 people she’s fought in the top 15…Holm, GDR, McMann. The entire division would be new fights for her. If they want to create another monster for her to slay, sure…Harrison makes sense, but there’s plenty of opponents for her. We have no clue how good Harrison even is. Most of her career is at 155 against 135ers. Imagine how good Holly Holm would look if she was fighting 125ers at 145. She’d look like a fucking savage.
The most hilarious thing about the WFW division is there are three fighters on the planet that fans want to watch compete in the division, Cyborg, Nunes and Harrison. Cyborg is in Bellator and she just fought another BW, Nunes is a BW and in the UFC and then Harrison is up at LW fighting blown up FLWs and BWs in the PFL.
If they want interest in WFW, you could not script it worse if you tried.