Kayla Harrison defends the UFC women's bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, in the co-main event of UFC 334. It is her first defence of the belt — and ten months ago, it was a fight her body very nearly took away from her for good. Her road to this cage started in Middletown, Ohio, and it is unlike any other in the sport.
“It got to the point where I was questioning if I was ever going to feel like myself again. But I'm back. I'm back.”
Harrison was born in Middletown on July 2, 1990, and took up judo at age six. Her mother, a black belt, introduced her to the sport, thinking it would be good for self-defence. The talent showed immediately: by age 15, Harrison had won two national championships.
Behind the medals, her childhood in the sport was shattered. She was abused for nearly six years, beginning around age 11, by her judo coach. In 2007 she spoke out. Her coach pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Her mother then sent her to Wakefield, Massachusetts, to live and train with Jimmy Pedro and his father, Jim Pedro Sr. It was there that Harrison rebuilt herself. She won the world junior title in 2008 and her first world championship in 2010.
In London in 2012, she beat Brazil's Mayra Aguiar in the semifinal and Great Britain's Gemma Gibbons in the final to win Olympic gold — the first American judoka ever to win Olympic judo gold. Four years later in Rio, she did it again, taking her second gold at 78 kilograms. She remains the only American judoka to have won Olympic gold in the sport.
She switched to MMA in 2018 and conquered a second sport. Harrison won the PFL lightweight tournament in 2019 and repeated as champion in 2021. She signed with the UFC in January 2024 and beat former champion Holly Holm in her promotional debut at UFC 300. In June 2025, at UFC 316, she submitted Julianna Peña with a second-round kimura to capture the UFC bantamweight championship, taking her record to 19-1.
The first defence was set: Nunes, at UFC 324 on January 24, 2026. Then, two weeks before the fight, Harrison's neck gave out. She could not lift her arm. Nerve pain shot through her — "lightning bolts," as she described them — and she slept about three hours in five days. She flew to New York, and the doctor told her she needed surgery now. Monthly stem cell injections, rigorous physical therapy, muscle relaxers, nerve pain medication — she had tried all of it, and none of it worked. The surgery was a two-level fusion to treat five herniated discs, and it happened the next morning.
"It got to the point where I was questioning if I was ever going to feel like myself again," Harrison said. "But I'm back. I'm back."
She says she feels awesome now. And on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, in front of a New York crowd, the two-time Olympic champion who survived a shattered childhood, conquered judo, conquered the PFL and came back from spinal fusion surgery defends her UFC title against Amanda Nunes.
"I came over to challenge myself and to climb another mountain," Harrison said. "I can't wait for November 14th."
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