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Andreas Hale, ESPN
Kayla Harrison knows how to turn a negative into a positive.
The UFC’s No. 3-ranked women’s bantamweight will face Ketlen Vieira at UFC 307 on Oct. 5 with the winner getting the opportunity to challenge for the 135-pound championship, which will be contested later that night between titleholder Raquel Pennington and former champion Julianna Peña.
Pennington and Pena have had some things to say about Harrison supposedly “skipping the line” to get a title opportunity with the fight against Vieira being only her second in the UFC.
Now that Harrison will share a fight card with both challenger and champion, the two-time PFL Women’s Lightweight Tournament champion believes the threat she represents is the reason why both fighters can’t keep her name out of their mouths.
“I think everyone knows that it is only a matter of time [before I become champion],” Harrison said to ESPN. “When the truth don’t hurt, they start telling lies.”
Pena, in particular, has gone as far as to suggest that Harrison has used performance-enhancing drugs in the past. In July, she told “The MMA Hour” that she believes there is “no question” Harrison has used them, an allegation that Harrison has vehemently denied.
“Stay off the needle, bro,” Pena said on the show. “Maybe not now [is she on steroids] but definitely in the past. Absolutely.”
Though previously bothered by the accusation, Harrison said she now takes it as a compliment, saying her success is the only reason Pena would make such a claim.
“I realize that, like, damn, you don’t work hard enough to look the way I look, and you don’t believe in yourself enough to have this kind of hard work and dedication,” Harrison told ESPN. “So, I consider it a compliment. I’m all natural and always have been. I have worked my ass off since I was 12 years old and I’m proud.”
To further emphasize her point, Harrison revealed that she is the second-most tested athlete in the UFC. According to the UFC’s anti-doping database, Harrison has been tested 10 times in 2024, the most for any woman in the UFC. Conor McGregor leads all fighters in drug tests with 11.
“I think people forget that the first time I was tested by the USADA I was 12 years old,” Harrison told ESPN. “They came to my middle school. … I was on the National [Judo] Roster and have been tested since then.”
Harrison stressed that she’s “just not a cheater.”
“I have never taken steroids and I never will,” she said. “I don’t believe in it, especially in our sport it is borderline dangerous when you are inflicting damage on each other. I would never taint my legacy in that way.”