Kayla Harrison sees a lot to admire in Julianna Peña, but that doesn't mean she finds it easy to show the UFC women's bantamweight champion respect.
Harrison staked her claim for a championship opportunity with a 2-0 debut year in the UFC, which saw her submit former champion Holly Holm and defeat Ketlen Vieira on the scorecards.
Her win over the Brazilian came on the same card that saw Julianna Peña return to the throne at Raquel Pennington’s expense, setting up their showdown for 2025.
The pair are set to co-headline June's UFC 316 pay-per-view in Newark, where they'll reignite hostilities that have existed for years and reached the stage during last October's UFC 307 press conference. With that, it's safe to say that there's no love lost between the two rivals.
The challenger does still see plenty of positives in Peña, but during an appearance on Monday's episode of The Ariel Helwani Show on Uncrowned, Harrison explained why it's sometimes hard to give the champ her due.
I want to have a lot of respect for Julianna because she's a single mom, she's a veteran of the sport, she scratched and clawed her way to the top, she believed in herself when nobody believed in her," Kayla Harrison said. "I really wanna have admiration for her.
I think probably deep down I do, and I love that she's confident and she says what she thinks, but she's just pretty dumb sometimes," Harrison added.
