Kayla Harrison Willing To Drop To Featherweight, But Dislikes Weight Cutting

Two time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison picked up her second professional MMA win at PFL 6, defeating Jozette Cotton by third round TKO.

Harrison currently competes as a lightweight and is willing to drop to featherweight, but also condemns weight cutting at the same time.

“First of all, I don’t believe in cutting weight,” Harrison said on The MMA Hour. “I think it’s terrible for your body, I think if you’re gonna win, you’re gonna win at whatever weight you compete at and I think it’s sending a bad message to young girls and young kids. I don’t want anyone, especially my niece or someone to think that to be thinner is to be better. I just don’t believe in that. You’re big, you’re strong, you’re powerful, that’s the message that I want to send. But I do realize that if I want to be considered the best in the world, I have to beat the best. And that person is at 145 pounds.”

The lightweight fighter mentioned dropping to featherweight to “beat the best” and the best, at least in Harrison’s mind, is UFC Women’s Featherweight Champion Cyborg.

Weight cutting is a hot topic issue in the MMA world and Harrison believes the sport could benefit from the way judo handles things.

“I think the judo idea is a really good idea, the random next day weight check,” Harrison said. “Maybe not five percent, seven percent or something like that. You have these guys cutting 40, 50, whatever, pounds, I can’t even fathom cutting 50 pounds and then believing that I can step into a cage at my very best 24 hours later. Never mind physically how I would feel, but you have to think about — you’re not swinging a baseball bat. People are punching you in the head. You’re dehydrated, you’re also dehydrating your brain. What’s the number one thing that keeps your brain safe? It’s the water. To me, I’m surprised that commissions allow it as of now. I’ve never had MRIs or blood tests and all that to do a judo tournament. They do all these tests as commissions to make sure you’re healthy and you can fight, but they’re going to let you cut 50 pounds? That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

There is no word yet on when Harrison is going to be returning to action, but she has already defeated a pair of Bellator MMA veterans in the Olympic gold medalists two fight pro MMA career.