Entering the sport of mixed martial arts, Kayla Harrison was already in an elite class of athletes. But she has only continued to add to one of the most uniquely impressive resumes in MMA history, particularly after winning the UFC Bantamweight Championship on Saturday at UFC 316.
Harrison submitted via kimura lock champion Julianna Peña with five seconds remaining in the second round of their 135-pound title fight on Saturday in Newark, New Jersey. The win, Harrison’s third in the UFC, gave her her first title in the promotion, with which she signed in January 2024.
Following the win, ESPN posted on X, formerly Twitter, highlighting Harrison’s career martial arts accomplishments: UFC Bantamweight Champion, 2-time Olympic gold medalist in judo, and the youngest American rokudan (sixth-degree black belt in judo) ever, the latter of which she earned after winning her second Olympic gold medal in 2016.
UFC WOMEN’S BANTAMWEIGHT CHAMPION
Kayla Harrison is putting together one of the most impressive combat sports resumes we’ve ever seen
#UFC316 pic.twitter.com/DQiXZnCU4i
— ESPN (@espn) June 8, 2025
Harrison decided to embark on an MMA career after her Olympic success, and the judoka signed with the World Series of Fighting, which has since restructured and become the Professional Fighters League (PFL). She quickly proved her dominance in the league’s 155-pound lightweight division, winning her first 15 fights (12 by stoppage), including tournaments in 2019 and 2021. Harrison suffered her first and only defeat of her career to this point in November 2022 when she lost via unanimous decision to Larissa Pacheco in the 2022 lightweight tournament final.
Harrison rebounded in what would prove to be her last PFL fight vs. Aspen Ladd, whom she defeated via unanimous decision in a 150-pound catchweight bout. A year and a half later, Harrison debuted for the UFC, submitting former bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC 300. She subsequently decisioned Ketlen Vieira to set up Saturday’s championship fight with Peña.
Unlike the PFL, the UFC does not have a 155-pound women’s division; bantamweight (135 pounds) is the promotion’s heaviest division for women after the discontinuation of the 145-pound featherweight division when longtime champion Amanda Nunes retired in 2023. Nunes, though, said before Harrison-Peña that she would come out of retirement to fight the winner, setting up one of the most anticipated women’s MMA fights of all time.
Nunes, 37, remains the only woman in UFC history to become a two-division champion. She was announced as an inductee into the UFC Hall of Fame in April.
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