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Former Olympic gold medalist in Judo, Kayla Harrison, will make her long-awaited UFC debut against Holly Holm at UFC 300 on Saturday night.
And she’s already cleared perhaps her biggest hurdle before the fight event begins.
Harrison, who won gold medals at 172 pounds in 2012 and 2016, made the 136-pound bantamweight limit on Friday to officially solidify her bout with Holm.
Though it certainly wasn’t easy. Harrison looked extremely sucked out and almost zombie-like as she stepped on the scales. But she did make the weight, which is all that matters.
Holly Holm Said She Wouldn’t Fight If Kayla Harrison Missed Weight For UFC 300
Holm was not convinced that Harrison could do so.
“I think that there’s a lot of details around that,” Holm said on the “MMA Hour” in January. “Somebody can be depleted, but somebody can be faster if they’re not carrying around extra weight too. So I guess we’ll just see what happens when we get in there and we get to the fight. I don’t really know her history, I don’t think she’s ever missed weight. So I think she can be professional about it. As long as it’s not one of those things where it’s like, ‘I’ll get close enough and then hopefully still get the fight,’ nothing like that. Be professional about it and make weight and we’re ready to rock and roll.”
Host Ariel Helwani then after Holm if she would take a catchweight bout should Harrison fail to make weight.
“I’m on the stance that you need to make weight,” she said. “That’s just how it is.”
Now that’s not an issue.
Harrison’s previous MMA fights all came at either lightweight (155 pounds) or featherweight (145). Though she’d never missed weight, she’d also never had to cut all the way to bantamweight.
Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see if the massive cut affects her performance in the cage.