Can Kayla Harrison make 135 pounds? That’s one of the big questions surrounding the fights currently lined up for UFC 300 on April 13, 2024.
Harrison, 33, will make her surprise debut in the Octagon after a lengthy run in Professional Fighters League (PFL). Welcoming the former two-time Lightweight champion to the promotion will be none other than former UFC Bantamweight queenpin, Holly Holm.
A consummate professional and multi-sport champion like Harrison, Holm has never struggled with weight or outside-the-cage issues. However, fighting at 135 pounds will be a first for Harrison as all but two of her 17 career bouts (16-1) have taken place at 155 pounds with the other two at 145 and 150.
“Somebody can be depleted, but somebody can be faster if they’re not carrying around extra weight, too,” Holm said on The MMA Hour. “So I guess we’ll just see what happens when we get in there and we get to the fight. I don’t really know her history, I don’t think she’s ever missed weight. So I think she can be professional about it. As long as it’s not one of those things where it’s like, ‘I’ll get close enough and then hopefully still get the fight,’ nothing like that. Be professional about it and make weight and we’re ready to rock and roll.
“I’m on the stance that you need to make weight, that’s just how it is,” she continued. “I think that her mindset should be on, ‘I’m going to make weight,’ because she took the fight at 135. So I think it’s simple. I don’t think it should be super detailed.”
Fortunately for Holm, she’s never had an opponent miss weight in any of her 22 fights (15-6, 1 no contest) whether at Bantamweight or Featherweight. For comparison’s sake, Holm brought up Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson’s recent decline of his match up with Michel Pereira at UFC 291 in July 2023.
“You think about the fight with ‘Wonderboy,’ his opponent came in three pounds over and people were like, ‘Oh, it’s only three pounds.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, if it’s only three pounds, then go lose the three pounds.’ You know what I mean?” Holm said. “There’s two ways to look at it. It’s only this or it’s only that. You can look at it from a lot of different angles, but as a professional, find out how to make weight. I work hard to make my weight, so I expect the same.”