MMA Fighting - BREAKING: Kayla Harrison OUT Of UFC 324 Matchup With Amanda Nunes

Episode Date: January 14, 2026

The UFC's debut on Paramount+ has taken a hit with Kayla Harrison suffering a reported injury that has scratched her from her scheduled title defense against Amanda Nunes at UFC324. Following the breaking news, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react, discuss if Nunes should remain on the card against a new opponent, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jed Meshew: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@JedKMeshew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We have a podcast network. Everybody, Mike Heck here from MMAfighting.com, reacting to some breaking news on this Wednesday. UFC 324 has taken not just a hit, but a fairly big one. First reported by the Eagle Tribune, Kayla Harrison, the UFC Women's Vanamweight Champion, is out of her scheduled title defense next Saturday, a UFC 324 against the returning Amanda Nunes. And according to the report, Harrison was forced to undergo surgery to fix herniated discs in her neck after she flew to New York to seek treatment on her injury prior to the first

UFC on Paramount event in Las Vegas. Now, we over at MAAfighting.com, we have confirmed this news to be, in fact, true from a source with knowledge of. the promotions plans. As of now, and who the hell knows what could happen in the next several hours or several days leading up to UFC 324, it is expected that the fight will just be postponed to a later date. Amanda Nunes will not remain on the card. We don't know when that date will be for the rescheduled Kayla Harrison versus Amanda Nunes fight. Obviously, we'll keep you updated here at MAAfighting.com, but as of this very moment, UFC 324 moves forward with the one

interim lightweight title fight, the main event between Justin Gachi and Patty Pimbled, and as of this very second, 13 fights will take place at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. This one stings for multiple reasons. Obviously, it was a massive fight for the card and a massive fight for the UFC and a massive fight for the sport. And also, it's massively bad news for me

in regards to something that will drop tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. But joining me now to react to this, news is the one and only Mr. Doe grayer himself, Jed Mishu. Jed, your reaction to this fight no longer taking place a UFC 324 in the news that is out there that Kayla Harrison had a neck injury, surgery, and she's not fighting January 24th. I think I was bummed because everybody's like a little bit bummed, but I don't think this is that bad for the UFC. I know I've seen some immediate backlash saying that this is, you know,

2026 is off to a terrible start and this is this is horrible and like it's not good not here to tell you that it's good when a marquee fight falls out but i think this card can suffer that loss pretty well and again this fight isn't going away forever it's it's getting postponed now we'll talk in a little bit about how long that postponement might be i have not a medical doctor but you know we can discuss a few things in that regard but like i think it's okay for that fight not to happen next week. It would obviously be better if it did. You know, the whole narrative with 324 was even announced was why is Gaichi Pimbley Pimlet the main event when this is the greatest women's fight of all time. I don't agree with that assessment of it, but still.

And so now, like, that's removed. And if you look at 324, top to bottom, this is still a very solid card to kick the year off. And so, you know, it'd be better to have this now. But even at time when they announced this. It felt like it was a little rushed just because this is supposed to be such a monumental thing. And then they were like, well, it'll be in January. And so I'm not that upset. I don't know, maybe it's just because it's been such a long layoff that like I'm just not even nothing. Everything is just pinging off me right now. But yeah, it would be better if we had this fight happen next week. I don't think this card is terrible. That fight will happen in the future. And frankly, at women's ban and weight, we can stand to space things out because it's

not like there's a backlog of contenders that need to fight, you know, Kayla Harrison or Mananunas next. So if we're going to lose one of the two fights this weekend, I personally actually would rather us have lost this one than the Gaichi Pimlet main event. So there's a lot of sort of discourse, a lot of conversation going on on social media as you discussed. But one of the major questions, that keeps coming up is, should Amanda in the UFC figure something out to keep her on the card, even if it is against Norma Dumont, who I know her team has spoken to a couple of our colleagues who have said, we have raised our hands, we have approached the UFC, we will fight Amanda Nunes on 10 days notice. With this new paramount era and introducing this newer cluster of fans

and how important it is to attach them, or I guess in some cases reattach them to the stars of and even the past in Amanda Nunes's case, should the UFC consider this? Should they consider putting Amanda on this card, figuring out a dollar amount that makes her happy and risking it for the biscuits, so to speak, just getting her in there, getting her on the fans' radar, fight Norma Dumont.

If she wins, obviously it elevates a little bit. The Kayla Harrison fight, you could do an interim belt and they do a unification bout, or would this just be a silly conversation for the UFC brass to have? Why risk it at all for a fight of this magnitude? my guess is that they're going to have a conversation about it and I actually would like them to do that I wouldn't like them to pick Norma Dumont frankly and I'll explain my reasons in a moment I think that it would be broadly beneficial both for Amanda Nunes for building the fight with Kayla Harrison that eventually will happen and for the UFC promotionally to get her back into the mix Amanda has been out for several years at this point we all know the life cycle of fans in this board is not particularly long.

Obviously, if you're listening or watching to this right now, you've probably been in the trenches for a bit, and we love you for that. But the casual of a May fan that, you know, they're in it for a couple of years, they wax and wane. And so, you know, we, and this fight to some extent, because, because honestly, like, they also weren't super promoting this. They were more promoting UFC on Paramount than this big fight that's happening January 24th.

There's a little bit of that. But, like, maybe we can get a little bit more promotional heft if we let her fight and showcase, oh, this is why people think fondly of Amanda Nunes. She is one of the greatest, if not the greatest female fighter of all time. Let's let her go bomb on somebody. And so to me, I think a Norma would be a bad choice. Amanda may well beat Norma, you know, it's hard to say. But it's so hard to say where Amanda is. one of my big questions for Amanda versus Kayla is,

what's Amanda going to look like after several years off, having not competed against somebody who has been competing actively for the last like seven years or whatever? And so maybe we can sort of avoid that by giving her a tune-up fight. And I know the UFC traditionally hasn't really liked to do tune-up fights, but in these circumstances, I think that kind of would make sense. Now, again, I wouldn't pick Norma Dumont. I think I'd pick Amanda to beat Norma, you know, because of obviously the ceiling of potential.

But like, I mean get her a win. Like, let's do this old school boxing style. And okay, this was going to be cool. Let's have her smash somebody. And I've been looking around and trying to find, like, who are some other women's bannam weights currently scheduled that were just, like, very obviously lose? and like you could pull Eileen Perez or Macy Chason I mean Macy is at least big

but she's not very good but you could pull Eileen Perez from their fight at UFC Mexico I think that that's a thing you could do Nor Cornoli is fighting she would absolutely lose to Amanda or you could even do something lower than that just pick a random

Haley Cowan can come in there and just get bombed on by Amanda Nunes and that would be a okay she will you know don't make her be the co-main event but i think there would be a lot of utility a lot of value and having her still compete and i think the uc will have a conversation but ultimately i strongly doubt that they do a replacement here because you know we lost this fight once before this fight the it very famously amanda and kela were going to fight and then amanda lost a juliana opinion in a fight that only I predicted she would lose.

I don't think they're going to risk losing this again when the alternative is, yeah, we'll just wait. And maybe, honestly, maybe the timeline works even better because I don't know how long Kayla will be out. I did a little bit of research. Always do your own research, folks. And per the internet, which has never lied to anybody, Michael. Ever.

It could be, you know, it depends on the severity of the neck surgery is herniation. to dis support apparently. That could be, you know, a couple of months and then she can get back to sort of status quo. It could be six, seven, eight months before, you know, she can really start doing combat work in that regard. So I don't know, but if that timeline, I'm sure the UFC has a better idea, and if that timeline is going to line up for Kayla and Amanda to fight at the White House, that makes more sense than them randomly fighting, you know, in January and Las Vegas anyway. So I think there are some silver linings here. I think the UFC will always discuss options and they are going to settle on. Nope.

We have a perfectly serviceable co-main event to slot in in place of this and we'll just keep cruising. What's Misha Tate doing right now? Honestly, they'd be perfect. Misha Tate is like exactly a correct answer. It could be like her final fight. I know she's kind of like one foot in one foot out right now in regards to where she's at in her career. I don't know how she feels physically or if she's, been training or not, but yeah, I mean, that could be like a main card opener right there.

Just do something like that. Misha can have her retirement moment. Like that would be, that'd be fun. That would be fun for if they're going to do it, they should do something like that and not do Norma Dumas who has, I mean, one, you're killing off a possible contender, two, you might kill off this super fight. And three, nobody knows Norman Dumont. It's just, it's not, the juice is not worth that sort of a matchup.

Good on Dumont's team to try. but I think that's roughly 1% possible. If I was going to do it, it would be somebody like Amisha Tate, but I think you can just hold, and this is fine. The co-main event, Sean O'Malley is a perfectly serviceable

co-main event to slot in here. Is that going to blow the doors off anybody? No, nobody's that pumped about it, but there's a reason you do two double main events like this, and it's because if one falls, the other is there. Gachi and Pimbleit can carry this car, Umali can slot in as the co-main with his fight with Song Yudong, and then you can move Umar versus Figurato from the middle prelims up to the main card.

Bob's your uncle, we're cruising. Yeah. So the card as it stands right now, it's Waldo Cortez-A Costa Derek Lewis would probably be the featured fight, which makes a ton of sense. Arnold Allen John Silva rocks, Dekita Krylov, Modestis Pukoskas is there. I don't mind that as the main card opener because, I mean, well, it's not a pay-per-view anymore, but that fight's not going to last very long. That fight's going seven minutes or less.

Umar Figgy's a very early. You got to fight. If you're, if you're adding one up, it has to be Umar Figgy. Yeah. Or, Umar is very possibly fighting for the belt once he dummies Figgy. Figgy's a former champion. Uh, like that,

arguably that fight should be on the main card over Arnold Allen, John Silva, frankly. So like, that has to be the card that gets bumped up. Uh, Taba Gautier, Andre Pulae. If we kind of know what that's going to be like, Alex Perez, Charles Johnson, Josh Hokit, Denzel Freeman. They could bump Natalia Silva versus Rosamayunez up there as well.

Michael Johnson, Alexander. Yeah, that's the other choice. I like Silva Rose as the lead-in. That feels like a good fight for a lead-in. But also, that'd be fine. And you have Umar Figy as the lead-in. Either of those two, no wrong answers with either of those moving to the main card. And we got Ricky Terseos, Cameron Smotherin, Ty Miller, Adam Fuggett to kick off the prelims.

But I'll tell you what. Yeah. it would be I think it's probably not like as transparently reasonable but if you just want to say F it and throw a table of Goteer on the main card to watch him kill a man that's not like

you could do worse than that too so that's the thing I think people are down on this card I don't really know why I really like this card it's a really good one I think the early prelims are bad and that's I'm not here to dispute that whatsoever

but like the middle and main card are all very very solid And so I think this can take this hit. It's a shame. We're losing a very big fight. But again, we're not losing it forever. And, you know, while this is sort of the second time we've lost this fight, which starts to, you know, get the hair standing up on end, right?

This is not a Habib, Tony situation where it's like, oh, we're cursed. This fight will never happen. We should be despondent. It's like, okay, you know, let's delay this up a few months and run it. that'll be okay to yeah the the reports both from leo walker and the eagle tribune is that this could be postponed six months but again we don't we don't know we don't know not a not a medical podcast my not a medical podcast i don't think it's happy to get the white house i would be pretty my my initial reaction when i read uh it herniated disson neck and surgery is that this she is

probably out close to a year um but that is wildly spanked So like it to me, it's just like neck injury seem like a really dangerous thing to try and do combat with. So, but you know, we'll see. I am, I would say it's unlikely at the White House, but I wouldn't say it's 0%. Hey, it's Olivia from Ollie. I got to tell you, I saw when you asked AI about probiotics. No judgment, but I think Ollie can help. probiotics are the good bacteria that support your digestive and immune system. Just two gummies a day to bring balance to your gut. So, save the AI for drafting that reply to your X. That's going to take guts.

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We shall see, but as of now, UFC 324 has 13 fights. Amanda Nunes off the card. Kayla Harrison off the card. who knows that the UFC comes through with an opponent. Real quick, Jed, before we get out of here, your reaction to Israel Adasanya versus Joe Pfeiffer, the main event from UFC Seattle, Dana White and the UFC said, don't go anywhere, stay by your phones, stay by your device of choice,

because we got some big announcements coming your way. We get Israel, Adasania versus Joe Pfeer. We already knew about Macy Barber versus Lexa Grasso. So we get the return of Adasana, his first fight, and it'll be over a year. after the lost in Asardine Imovov, and he's taking on B. Joe Pfeiffer, your reaction to this main event. I know people mocked Dana for the big announcement and then it's this. I do wonder, and to me, maybe the best argument that the UFC might be looking for a replacement,

is that announcement yesterday? Because it does feel like maybe Dana was saying, we're going to go on an announcement. And that announcement was to be, you know, Amanda. versus Kayla is off. Kayla's out with injury. We're going to do X, Y, or Z. Because, like, I'm sure the UFC has known about this longer than we have.

My guess is this is a little bit older than 24 hours or whatever. And so maybe the UFC put in a call and was like, maybe we can do Amanda versus Juliana 3, like on short notice. And that was their hope. And for whatever reason, Juliana Pena has said, I can't do that on this timeline. and so then instead of it being like because that would make more sense to me

of like a hey we're going to do this big announcement so Kayla's out but Amanda Juliana 3 for the interim belt and Izzy versus Joe Piper but they couldn't lock that up so instead we just got the Izzy Joe Piper which is a it's definitely not like the world's greatest announcement but I do think this is a good fight I like the matchmaking here

that is the first time technically not the first time Izzy has been an underdog in his UFC career. He did open as a slight underdog against Robert Whitaker in their first fight, but was bet to be the favorite after some time. He is currently the underdog to Pfeiffer. I suspect that will hold up. Pfeiffer's getting the boots to him, right?

Like, these are the rocket boots. Like, hey, Izzy is currently number six in the UFC middleweight rankings. You beat him, former champion. You might just straight up be fighting Hamz out for the belt if he beats Izzy. and Izzy three-fight losing streak is he washed like that's just the question he got bolted up by Nassar Dina imov who's obviously very very talented

but is he washed we're going to get to find out if he still has any juice left in the tank and if not Pfeiffer gets to be the beneficiary and you know Bijo Pfeiffer they have been behind this dude since contender series he had a bit of a setback now he's you know three-fight winning streak this is like perfect matchmaking

to me. Both dudes can win this fight. The outcomes are good either way. We'll learn a lot. Advance people in the appropriate directions for their career. Credit Daisy for taking this. He certainly would not have to take a fight against Joe Piper.

But I think this is a great matchmaking. I have no idea what to expect from this fight, but well done on the UFC. I like the fight. I wish you just got a little bit more. We don't even have a main event for London yet. that's a week before that event. So I'd like to know what the main event for that card is.

That is ours. So nothing there. I know a lot of people are expecting some UFC 327 announcements. We were able to at least confirm the Azamat Mirza Kanaf versus Paul Acosta fight, which is kind of a weird one. But sure, let's do it. But I think when you see these big announcements, we're talking multiple main events,

maybe a numbered card fight. We didn't get that. I think if we got, and I don't know if it's going to be Lorone Murphy versus, Buzar of Loya. I have no idea. I truly don't know what this, what this main event is going to be

because I have not confirmed as much, but I think if they added to, and by the way, we're going to London. Is Murphy of what have confirmed or is that still rumor? No, it's, nothing's really confirmed right now.

The rumor still, okay. Yeah, that's still rumored. I would strongly anticipate that's going to be the main event there, but, you know, we don't know. We don't know who's healthy. We don't know.

We haven't seen a Vloia fight a long time. He was dealing with a bunch of injuries last year. So, yeah, we don't really know. So, I mean, If they had added that main event too, I think it would have gone over a little bit better, but it just seemed like, ooh, we're waiting all this time for a phone recording. And the thing ends abruptly. And I was like, oh, maybe like his battery died or something.

And then the UFC socials reposted the whole announcement, like from a different camera angle. And it ended with, we'll see you in Seattle. Have a good day, everybody. And I was like, oh, guess is maybe his phone did die, but they kept the camera rolling, I guess. I really think that there were. more because the way the OC wants to go, they want to be the ones to break news. And so if they wait

to say there's going to be an announcement at X time and that that announcement is already locked up, they've already got that fight dealt with. Then that creates an hour, several hours window for news to get broken ahead of them, which they don't like.

I honestly, my read of this situation is they were actively looking for a replacement for Kayla yesterday. Couldn't get anything locked up, nothing that they felt comfortable with and that the fighters they choose. Again, my suspicion is pain yet. That's entirely speculation. And so they were just left with, we do have Izzy versus Pfeiffer. We have to run this announcement out, but we don't have any of these other things that we would have. Because historically, Dana has not announced

one or like two fights on an event. It has been, here's a couple of things happening. And so if that's what it felt like to me at the time, because also by that time, we'd already started to hear some rumors about Kayla. Yeah. And so then it really felt like in hindsight now that the Kayla news is confirmed. It's like I feel very strongly that they were going to announce something yesterday and they could not get it done. Yeah, I did see Julianna Pena this past weekend.

She was doing commentary for RAF. I tried to actually have a conversation with her after the press conference. And she said she wasn't ready to talk. So who knows, maybe negotiations are ongoing. I don't know. But there you have it. There's the news. If you're trying to be splashy, Pena's the one.

If you're trying to be splashing, keep Amanda on it. Pena's the one. 100%. And I think if you're Pena, you jump all over that opportunity if it's presented to you. But who knows? And, you know, if something like that does happen, we'll be back here on MAAfighting.com. Thank you so much for following along. And if there's any updates, we will let you know about it on the greatest MMA website on

planet Earth for Jedmishu. I am Mike Eck. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. We're out of here. Love you all.