Kayla Harrison close to re-signing with the PFL

Kayla Harrison is reportedly close to re-signing with the PFL (Professional Fighters League).

Over the last several months, the MMA community has been rife with speculation regarding Harrison potentially joining the UFC, which is widely regarded as the world’s premier MMA promotion.

Ariel Helwani has now taken to Twitter to reveal that Harrison – who’s one of the most sought-after free agents in the sport of MMA – is likely to re-sign with the PFL.

Helwani’s tweet featured an image of the legendary Judoka with a caption that reads:

“The strong front-runner to sign Kayla Harrison right now is the PFL. Not a done deal just yet, but they are definitely the strongest atop leaderboard at the moment.”

Harrison bagged gold medals in the sport of Judo at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. She later transitioned to MMA and won the 2019 and 2021 editions of the PFL women’s lightweight tournament. Her most recent bout was a second round submission win against Taylor Guardado at PFL 10 in October 2021.

Following this, Harrison entered free agency and was even acknowledged during the official UFC broadcast at the UFC 269 event in December 2021. The consensus is that she was in attendance at the event to hype up a potential super-fight at featherweight against Amanda Nunes.

However, Nunes – the then-UFC women’s featherweight and bantamweight champion – lost her bantamweight belt to Julianna Pena at UFC 269. This, in turn, is said to have dented fan interest in a possible UFC featherweight title super-fight between 'The Lioness' and Harrison.

It also further lowered the probability of the Judoka signing with the UFC.

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Julianna Pena on a potential fight against Kayla Harrison

Many believe that a matchup between UFC women’s bantamweight champion Julianna Pena and Kayla Harrison is unlikely to transpire, given the fact the Judoka competes at lightweight and featherweight.

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Pena from jibing at Harrison, who happens to be a member of the ATT (American Top Team) gym which was, until recently, the home to Pena’s rival Amanda Nunes. Speaking to MMA Junkie, Pena revealed that she isn’t interested in fighting Harrison.

She explained:

"I think that she [Kayla Harrison] is the lesser of the training partner for Amanda Nunes. So if that's the case and I just took out Amanda, I don't really know what kind of a position that would put her in. But she's been fighting in the B leagues, you know. And I'm fighting in the UFC, I'm fighting at the top of the division, I'm fighting in the biggest league of the sport."