Kayla Harrison has been hyped for years as arguably the greatest women’s fighter outside of the UFC, and she proved Saturday night at UFC 300 that she may now be the most feared women’s fighter within the UFC.
Harrison defeated former women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm in her UFC debut, submitting Holm with a rear-naked choke in the second round.
The choke is Harrison’s seventh career submission win. Prior to the UFC, Harrison compiled a 16-1 record in the Professional Fighter’s League, winning the PFL’s women’s lightweight tournaments in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
In the PFL, Harrison exclusively fought at lightweight (155 pounds), but the heaviest women’s division in the UFC is bantamweight (135 pounds). Any questions about how the 5-foot-8 Harrison would handle the weight cut were answered Saturday, as Harrison looked dominant in her bantamweight debut.
She looked strong stand-up exchanges with Holm, a former world champion boxer, and executed multiple trip throws to get Holm to the ground. In the first round, that led to multiple minutes of heavy ground-and-pound, with Holm on the receiving end of heavy punches and elbows as she was pressed against the fence.
In the first minute of the second round, Harrison hit Holm with a headkick then shot a double leg…
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