UFC champion Kayla Harrison didn’t have a whole lot to say a couple of weeks ago when Ronda Rousey went on an expletive-filled rant tearing her down. That changed over the weekend.
“Gina is so relevant that she is the whole reason the 145-pound division even exists,” Ronda Rousey said during a press conference to hype up her comeback fight against Carano. “I am so relevant that the only reason she has a job at the UFC is because of me.
“Kayla is so irrelevant that she couldn’t even keep the 145-pound division around. Honestly, she’s just sour because no matter what she does or accomplishes, she has the charisma of a wet towel and will always be in mine and Gina’s shadows.”
Kayla Harrison issued a three-word response to Ronda Rousey’s rant: “Fight me den.” Harrison also took a veiled shot at Rousey when she posted on social media that a fight between her and Amanda Nunes would be “the greatest fight of all time and take women’s MMA to a whole new level.”
Other than that, though, she hadn’t had a whole lot to say about Rousey. Over the weekend, however, she addressed her head-on in an interview on Paramount+.
“Imagine hating me and I’m just over here in my backyard feeding chickens. It’s got to be rough,” Harrison said.
“I think that the part that bothers me most about Ronda is at one point she was a real athlete. She was training for the Olympics. She’s an Olympic bronze medalist. She became a UFC champion. She was really trying to chase greatness. I will never take away the fact that Ronda is probably the most-important female fighter; if it weren’t for her, for sure I wouldn’t be where I’m at. I wouldn’t have a job.
“But this fight [with Gina Carano] is not the greatest fight of all time. It’s between someone who hasn’t fought in 10 years and is coming off two knockout losses, and another woman, again another legend, another pioneer, but hasn’t fought in 17 years and is in her 40s. Don’t call it the greatest fight of all time. I’m chasing greatness. You’re chasing money. We’re different.”