SALT LAKE CITY – Kayla Harrison continues to tick the boxes of new experiences in combat sports.
A little past six years into her MMA career, which has included just one loss, Harrison (18-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) got to see her own blood for the first time in a fight. Ketlen Vieira (14-4 MMA, 8-4 UFC) was the opponent from whom it was courtesy of.
That doesn’t mean Harrison was in trouble against the Brazilian in their women’s bantamweight fight to open the UFC 307 pay-per-view main card at Delta Center on Saturday. She mostly rolled to a unanimous decision, including a pair of 30-27 scores. But the blood thing was new.
“That threw me, I’m not going to lie to you,” Harrison told MMA Junkie and other reporters at the post-fight news conference. “Nineteen fights in, I’ve never seen my own blood in the cage. But it feels good.”
Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, was in just her second UFC fight. She came to the promotion earlier this year after spending her full MMA career in the PFL, where she won two $1 million season titles.
She said she thinks being tested a bit by Vieira, whom she said she thought could beat UFC 307 co-headliners Julianna Peña or Raquel Pennington, might be the push she needs.
“I feel like I’m going to grow from this tonight,” Harrison said. “It’s a really good learning opportunity for me, and tomorrow, we’re going to go back to the house, rewatch the fight and dissect it. Tomorrow’s a new day – lots of room for improvement for me.”
In the co-feature, Peña (13-5 MMA, 8-3 UFC) upset Pennington (16-10 MMA, 13-6 UFC) to win the 135-pound title back about two years after she lost it to Amanda Nunes.
And though Harrison’s fight with Vieira was presumed to be a top contenders bout, Peña said at her post-fight press conference she hopes Nunes comes out of retirement to fight her a third time. The two are 1-1 against each other.
Naturally, Harrison might find the timing for that to be odd. She wants a title shot against new two-time champ Peña, but if she has to keep fighting instead, she will.
“I think that there are athletes, there are performers and there are fighters, and sometimes you’ve got to be able to dig deep. That’s what a fighter does,” Harrison said. “… Fighters fight. When you’re the best in the world, you’re the best in the world. It doesn’t matter (who I fight). I’m the uncrowned queen. If I have the belt, if I don’t have the belt, I’m still the best in the world. I’d fight – I don’t care who it is. Fill in the blank. I mean that when I say it. I don’t think that there’s anybody in the world that will beat me right now.”
And that, she hopes is the X factor to become a champion in the UFC.
“I’ve done some pretty amazing things in my career. I want this to be another really big one,” Harrison said. “I know that I don’t have forever left as an athlete, so I want to make the most of it while I can. I’ve got a long list sh*t I want to do in the UFC, so let’s get that title.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 307.
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