Kayla Harrison is back, and she’s bringing the heat with her.
The two time Olympic judo gold medalist has spent nearly a year out recovering from a scary neck injury that required serious surgery, and she’s preparing to step straight back into the cage against Amanda Nunes at UFC 334 on November 14th. You have to have sky high confidence to take on the MMA GWOAT under those circumstances … fortunately Kayla’s got that covered.
Even coming back from surgery, Harrison believes she’s currently unstoppable
in MMA. Not even prime Ronda Rousey could stop her, she said during a recent appearance on the Deep Waters podcast.
“We learned the armbar at the same gym together,” Kayla said. “You think she’s going to armbar me? Oh my goodness, don’t be disrespectful.”
During her brief comeback earlier this year, Rousey said some pretty disrespectful things about Harrison, and Harrison didn’t hold back when asked what Rousey’s legacy was.
“Dominating women who picked up gloves three years ago at a cardio-kickboxing class and said, ‘I think I’m going to try this,'” she said before adding sarcastically, “Yes, 100%, she paved the road.”
“She paved the way,” she added more sincerely. “I’m standing on her shoulders and for that I am grateful.”
That being said, though, Ronda ain’t s–t.
“I don’t want to sound cocky,” Harrison said. “I’m not. So in judo, there are World Cups, Grand Prixs, Grand Slams, and then the World Masters, then the World Championships, then the Olympics … Being a World Champion is harder but being an Olympic medalist is more prestigious. Ronda has an Olympic bronze medal, a world silver medal, and she won a World Cup and medaled at some Grand Prix.”
“I have won every single World Cup, every single Grand Prix, every single Grand Slam. I won the World Masters twice. I won the World Championships and took three bronze medals. And I won the Olympics twice.”
“So of course I knew i could do [MMA],” Harrison concluded. “Because anything she could do, I could do better.”
Normally you’d hope to see Harrison and Rousey sort things out in the cage, but that seems unlikely at this point. “Rowdy” made it clear when she returned for a fight against Gina Carano in May that this was a one-fight thing and she was returning to private life to have more babies. Even if she did have a desire to prove the haters wrong and take on Harrison, she spent the last six months ripping into the UFC and calling the guy in charge a “chauvinist pig.”
Kayla Harrison certainly isn’t going anywhere and only has a few more fights in her before ‘the wheels fall off.’ So this rivalry with Ronda won’t go anywhere past words, which is too bad because that would be a hell of a fight.
