Kayla Harrison believes the greatest female fighter in MMA history is now Kayla Harrison. She said so at her post-fight press conference after submitting Amanda Nunes with a rear-naked choke in Round 4 of the UFC 334 co-main event on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Yahoo Sports reported that she framed the claim as a title she took from Nunes in the cage, and one she expects to lose someday.
“I believe that Amanda was the greatest female fighter, and I think that that’s me tonight,” Harrison said. Then, almost in the same breath, she added a caveat you rarely hear from a champion holding a fresh microphone: “It’s not gonna be like that forever.”
She also made clear the debate wasn’t going to keep her up at night. “I mean, I don’t really care what people say,” she said. “I am happy, I am satisfied.”
How she got here
The win was Harrison’s first successful defense of the women’s bantamweight title, and it came against the one opponent whose name carried the most weight in the GOAT conversation. Nunes was coming out of retirement for this fight. When the Brazilian walked away, she did so as the consensus pick for the best woman to ever compete in MMA, which is exactly why a submission win over her lands differently than any other defense Harrison could have booked.
The victory moves Harrison to 20-1 as a professional. Her lone loss came in the PFL against Larissa Pacheco, a fighter Harrison had already beaten twice before that defeat. She is 36 years old, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, and she has been dominant since making the move to the UFC.
The open question is the scale. Yahoo noted that her bantamweight reign may not last long given what it costs her to make the division’s limit. Harrison didn’t lay out a next opponent or a next date in the remarks reported from the press conference, and the weight cut hangs over any plan she makes at 135.
My take
I’ll give her the claim for the night, and I like how she made it. A lot of fighters reach for forever the moment the hand is raised. Harrison reached for tonight, which is a more honest way to talk about a sport that keeps producing someone new. The resume is real: two Olympic golds, a 20-1 record, a title defense, and a tap from the woman everyone else crowned first. There’s a fair argument that Nunes coming back from retirement isn’t the same Nunes who left, and longtime fans of the Lioness will make it loudly. But Harrison didn’t pick that fight from a menu of easy options. She asked for the hardest name available and finished it in the fourth round in New York. If the cut to bantamweight is as brutal as reported, the most interesting thing she does next may happen on a scale before it happens in a cage.
