Olympic gold-winning judoka Kayla Harrison will fight Holly Holm at April’s UFC 300 event, it has been confirmed.
The 33-year-old Harrison, a 6th dan judo black belt, is generally regarded as being among the best female combat sports athletes in history having scored gold medals in the London Olympics in 2012 and again in Rio in 2016, as well as numerous other wins including the world championships in Tokyo in 2010, the Pan American Games in both 2011 and 2015, the World Masters in 2015 and 2016 and, well, the list goes on…
Harrison parlayed her judo success into mixed martial arts, where she holds a 16-1 record — with her sole defeat, a huge shock in MMA circles, coming against Larissa Pacheco in November 2022. With the exception of one bout for the Invicta promotion, Harrison has fought her entire MMA career for the PFL, debuting back in June 2018.
And her first fight in her new home comes on one of the sport’s grandest stages; the UFC 300 card which has been hailed by Dana White as being among the biggest in the organisation’s history, and it will come against former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm.
Breaking News: UFC has signed Kayla Harrison!#UFC300 Holly Holm vs Kayla Harrison pic.twitter.com/jQeLItwQmO
— danawhite (@danawhite) January 24, 2024
“Holly will be taking on the only person in US history to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in judo. The UFC has officially signed Kayla Harrison,” White said in a video posted to social media overnight. “Kayla is 16-1 with 12 finishes. Her takedowns, her ground and pound are nasty, and this will be the first time she will be competing at bantamweight.”
UFC 300 takes place on April 13 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
