Former UFC bantamweight champion, ‘Rowdy’ Ronda Rousey has offered some career advice to upcoming PFL talent, Kayla Harrison, urging the two-time Olympic gold medalist to develop some “thicker skin” as the latter’s career continues to gain momentum.
Rousey, the UFC’s first-ever bantamweight champion, like Harrison, is also an Olympian, scoring a bronze medal at the 2008 summer Beijing games. A true pioneer of women’s mixed martial arts, Rousey scored a 12-2 professional record over the course of a five-year career.
While both Rousey and Harrison share a massively influenced judoka style, the latter’s career trajectory has already been likened to the former, with a matchup opposite current two-weight UFC world champion, Amanda ‘The Lioness’ Nunes already suggested for the 30-year-old in the coming years.
With an undefeated 7-0 professional résumé, Harrison featured under the Invicta FC banner on November 20 at Invicta FC 43 in an exemption of her PFL contract – decimating Courtney King with brutal ground-and-pound before grabbing a second-round knockout win in her 145-pound debut.
Prior to the win, the Ohio native had competed exclusively as high as lightweight, scoring a pair of wins over Larissa Pacheco in a career rematch, and Bobbi Jo Dalziel in the 2019 PFL Women’s Lightweight tournament – earning championship spoils.
Speaking with ESPN MMA recently, Harrison detailed a piece of career advice Rousey had offered her before she had made the transition from Judo to professional mixed martial arts.
“That’s the one thing Ronda (Rousey) always told me about MMA,” Harrison detailed. “She was like, ‘you need to have thicker skin or you’re going to get eaten alive.’ Because I am a little bit of a sensitive person.“
While Harrison’s professional career begins to take real shape, 33-year-old Californian, Rousey’s career in professional mixed martial arts came to its conclusion with a pair of knockout losses to former world champion, Holly Holm, and current titleholder, Nunes in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
A prominent grappler, Rousey, also a former Strikeforce bantamweight champion has nabbed eye-catching career wins over Julia Budd, Miesha Tate (x2), Sarah Kaufman, Liz Carmouche, Sara McMann, Alexis Davis, Cat Zingano, and Bethe Correia.