Kayla Harrison shares honest feelings about Julianna Pena, explains why she wants to "have a lot respect" for her

Kayla Harrison recently shared her honest feelings about Julianna Pena and explained why she wants to hold her in higher regard. They have traded jibes at each other on social media and through interviews and will now have an opportunity to settle their differences in the octagon.

Harrison will challenge Pena for her bantamweight championship in the co-main event of UFC 316, which takes place at the Prudential Center in New Jersey on Jun 7. 'The Venezuelan Vixen' will be making her first title defense after earning a split decision win over Raquel Pennington to regain the bantamweight championship.

During her latest appearance on The Ariel Helwani Show, Harrison admitted that she wants to have more respect toward Pena for what she has accomplished in her career. The former PFL champion mentioned that 'The Venezuelan Vixen' has proven on several occasions that she is capable of overcoming the odds despite being counted out:

"I want to have a lot of respect for Julianna because she's a single mom, she's a veteran of the sport, she scratched and clawed her way to the top, she believed in herself when nobody believed in her. I really wanna have admiration for her. I think probably deep down I do and I love that she's confident and she says what she thinks, but she's just pretty dumb sometimes. So, it's hard, it's difficult."

Check out Kayla Harrison's comments regarding Julianna Pena below:

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Kayla Harrison discusses whether she considers Julianna Pena a difficult opponent

Kayla Harrison also shared her thoughts on whether she considers Julianna Pena to be a difficult opponent for her compared to who she has already fought in her career.

During the aforementioned appearance, Harrison mentioned that she doesn't consider Pena's skill to be greater than past opponents, but credited her on the resilience and toughness that she has displayed throughout her career:

"I think that skill-wise, I don't think she's the top of the top, but I think in terms of heart and maybe experience, you know, she's got some good experience and she's definitely got confidence."

Check out Kayla Harrison's comments below: