Undefeated, reigning PFL women's lightweight champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist Kayla Harrison reiterated her desire to fight Bellator women's featherweight champion Cris Cyborg.
Harrison spoke with MMA Fighting's Damon Martin and responded to some of the comments Cyborg made about her following the Brazilian MMA legend's first-round knockout win over Sinead Kavanagh at Bellator 271.
“She’s right,” Harrison said. “I do want to fight her and I do need to fight her. I’m the young, hungry up and coming killer. She’s a trailblazer. She absolutely is. The only problem is I’m on that trail now. I’m on her heels and I’m coming for her. Maybe she doesn’t need to fight me, or maybe she doesn’t want to fight me and that’s why she’s saying that. That’s fine, too, but I’m going to pursue it with everything that I have. Because I want to be the best. I want to be the greatest. That’s it. Everyone knows I would love to fight Cyborg. It’s not a secret. I think that she would be a great test for me.”
She also provided an update on the current status of her free agency, saying she's leaving it to her team of advisors to make the best decision possible for her career going forward.
“I have nothing but good things to say about the PFL," Harrison said. "I’ve been very happy there. I know that they tried to get a deal done before the finals. It just didn’t pan out contractually the way some things were written, [my manager] Ali [Abdelaziz] wasn’t pleased about. But I mean, I have no gripes with the PFL. I just have to listen to my coaches. Where they think I should go, is where I’m going to go. Everyone wants to know what the answer is, where I’m going — PFL, Bellator, or UFC, etc. — and I don’t have an answer. I’m staying out of it. I’m going to trust my coaches. I’m going to trust Mike Brown and Steve Mocco and Anderson [Franca] and [American Top Team owner] Dan [Lambert] is an advisor of mine and Richie [Guerrero] is an advisor of mine and my coaches ‘Big’ Jim [Pedro] and Jimmy [Pedro] are advisors and Ali is out there doing the work, talking to people, setting up all of these meetings and things and this and that. My job now is just to trust them. If they say, ‘Kayla, you should go here,’ that’s what I’m going to do.”
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