NEWARK, N.J. — Kayla Harrison has a knack for winning gold, whether in the Olympics or in professional mixed martial arts
But her biggest win, in an adulthood full of professional triumphs, may have come Saturday night at UFC 316 at the Prudential Center when she made 135-pound champion Julianna Pena quit late in the second round to win a championship in only her third UFC fight.
She’s used to proving she’s a champion at the highest level, from the Olympics to the cage.
No U.S. judoka — man or woman — had ever won an Olympic gold medal before Harrison beat Britain’s Gemma Gibbons to win the women’s 78-kilogram division at the 2012 London Olympics. She won gold again four years later at the Rio de Janeiro Games and made her MMA debut in 2018.
The 34-year-old Harrison was a two-time $1 million prize champion in the Professional Fighters League lightweight championship division before she moved on to UFC last year. She won her first two UFC bouts and her record — now a sparkling 19-1 in MMA overall — coupled with her fame made her a contender for an instant title shot.
Through it all, Harrison has been open about the years of physical and mental abuse inflicted by a former coach leading into the Olympics. She was victimized as a teen, revealing she even thought of quitting judo and of suicide. Harrison turned to her deep faith — “I trust God” — that has steadied her along the way and she wrote a book about recognizing and overcoming trauma.
She’s turned into an advocate of sorts for abuse, and as the best active female MMA fighter continues to elbow her way into the public eye, Harrison speaks out candidly and without shame about her experience.
“I’m well removed from it,” she said. “I’m no longer that 10-year-old girl, that 16-year-old little girl. I’m an adult now. I feel like God gave me this story for a reason. It’s my job to use it to try and make the world a better place. I want to talk about it.”
Harrison reeled off grim child abuse statistics and noted, “that’s just the kids who say something.”
“How do we stop that? We stop it by having a conversation,” Harrison said. “We stop it by looking at it in the eye and putting a face to it.”
That face is now one of an elite MMA champion.
“I don’t ever want another little girl or little boy to feel alone, to feel dirty, to feel ashamed,” Harrison said. “There is hope. There is a shiny gold medal at the end of the tunnel. There is a UFC belt at the end of the tunnel.”
Harrison made quick work of Pena — who authored one of the great upsets in UFC history when she stunned Nunes for the belt in 2021 — to add another championship to her fight collection.
“I feel like my spirit is unbreakable and my faith is unshakable,” she said. “Who I am as a person is someone that I’m proud of. Yes, this belt is amazing. But the journey to get here is what matters most to me.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.