Judo will always be Kayla Harrison’s first love. No amount of MMA success can change that.
“I’ll always have a special place for [judo] in my heart. It’s always gonna be the path, the sport, the way of life that gave me a life I never dreamed of,” Harrison told The Post on Wednesday regarding the sport in which she earned two Olympic medals in the previous decade. “But MMA now is kind of like my mature, once-in-a-lifetime love. It’s an obsession.”
That obsession already paid off with a $1 million Professional Fighters League championship prize two years ago, and Harrison (10-0, eight finishes) finds herself just two wins away from doubling her money. If she can get through Genah Fabian in her headlining bout atop PFL 8 (9 p.m. on ESPN) at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., she again will advance to the championship season finale on Oct. 27.
The lightweight semifinal bout against Fabian (4-1, three finishes) came about as Harrison narrowly missed the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, setting up the 2-3 matchup. But the matchup is really two years in the making. The two were originally paired to meet in the semifinals two years ago, but an illness and weight-cut troubles scratched Fabian from the tournament.
“I’ve been watching her for a while. She’s been in the PFL for … three years now, if you include the year off [in 2020]. I think she’s a great opponent,” Harrison says, sizing up the kickboxer from New Zealand. “She’s a good test, a good striker. She looks sharp. She looks like she’s gotten better. She’s very big. I’m excited for this fight. This is the type of person that I want to fight.”
While Harrison isn’t looking past Fabian, she’s in the minority in that regard. There’s an air of inevitability that she’ll again be crowned PFL champion in the fall. That school of thought received a confidence boost later Wednesday when Larissa Pacheco, the only fighter who has gone the distance against Harrison in losing two decisions, was forced out of her semifinal matchup against Taylor Guardado that was also scheduled for Thursday.
Guardado now faces Mariana Morais, whom Harrison dismantled via TKO in 83 seconds in the 2021 season opener on May 6 — and was followed by a captivating, mic-dropping promo from Harrison.
The swagger she has brought to fight promotion and confidence in navigating ever-increasing media obligations comes from what she believes was a need to “evolve.” In her judo days, “nobody was holding a microphone to me after a match.”
Not so in MMA, especially for a two-time Olympic gold medalist who might be PFL’s biggest star. Harrison recalled catching flak for becoming emotional after her first of two wins over Pacheco in May 2019, which was her fourth pro MMA bout.
“I got a lot of backlash for crying after one of my fights because they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s just a crybaby.’ And I was kind of like, ‘Why are these people saying that?’ ” Harrison recalled. “But MMA is a different beast. I’ve had to evolve. I’ve had to learn to be comfortable in front of a camera and in front of a microphone and [during] the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And I think I am more comfortable. I am more confident. I believe in myself.”