MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Kayla Harrison vs. Holly Holm Set for UFC 300 | Morning Kombat

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Brian Campbell has you covered with a reaction to the news that Kayla Harrison will face Holly Holm at UFC 300. How will the weight cut be for Kayla? Is this the perfect fight for her UFC Debut? How does this shape and impact his thoughts on UFC 300? BC breaks it all down. Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy. Consider yourself warned. Limited time only at participating McDonald's in Canada. Breaking news overnight in the sport of mixed martial arts involving UFC 300 and the Women's Bantamweight Division. Hey, I'm Brian Campbell. Welcome on in of CBS Sports. And of course, along with Luke Thomas, I'm one half of the award-winning Morning Combat.

And when we're talking about UFC 300, the card April 13th in Las Vegas is starting to come together with the big names and the title bouts expected. And how about this featured attraction announced late Tuesday night by UFC CEO Dana White? That Kayla Harrison, two-time PFL champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist for the U.S., not going to come back for PFL in their new year and their ambitious plans and their merger with Bellator. Instead, Kayla Harrison will make her UFC debut at UFC 300 against who? How about Holly Holm? Wow, wow. This is Kayla Harrison essentially dropping down two weight classes as this fight come April 13th

has been officially announced as a women's Bantamweight fight. So, so much to get in here and break down from the standpoint of the gravity of this news and really why this news matters, specifically Kayla Harrison at age 33 becoming a UFC fighter. Now, first of all, hey, Dana White, these 11 p.m. Eastern time weeknight breaking news launches on social media get a little rough for us East coasters in their middle age like myself. But that notwithstanding, I have to say i was met very much with the idea that this news was huge but my first sort of point of topic as to why this matters is my surprise that i don't get the outrage overnight i don't

know if it's everyone's timeline or just the mentions on my own twitter slash x feed but the news of this announcement and the collective star power of matching two of the most accomplished female combat sports athletes in history and a fight that really none of us saw coming and oh by the way parachuting into UFC 300 which is becoming uh you know the must-see event event slowly that's finally living up to the sort of the round number and historic nature of it did get a lot of people coming back with the attitude of this. Well, hey, Holly Holmes, 42 and over the hill, which I certainly think you can push back against to a large degree

due to her incredible longevity and consistency. And the fact that, hey, Harrison's 33 and she's one dimensional. I don't know ultimately if it comes down to the fact that so many UFC fans might not be familiar with not just Kayla Harrison's accomplishments outside of the MMA cage, but certainly what she's done in recent years in PFL, you know, really creating a brand name for herself, even if you can argue how far that that star power does stretch to.

Well, now she's going to have a chance to essentially double and triple down on that by finally signing with the UFC. So I don't get the outrage of people, whether it's just tied under those who may not like women's fighting or may point to the overall lack of depth in this women's band and weight division, which is something we've certainly talked about, including up until UFC 297, when we saw that vacant title bout between Rocky Pennington and, of course, Mayra Buono Silva replacing the hole that's been lost with the great Amanda Nunes retiring and laying down both her 135 and 145 title but there's a lot to like with this announcement so right off the start you're adding an interesting fight to an already stacked

card and this whole idea that Holly is past it you know I want to fight back against that yes she's 42 years old yet but yes there is a split decision loss recently to Ketlin Vieta in her last fight. But that's a fight she, meaning Holly, has disputed. I think, you know, most people on Twitter thought that Holly deserved the nod. Sure, we can't just ignore the fact that she was submitted by Mayera Buenosilva in a fight that was later turned to a no contest when bueno silva had that usada whatever that was right the sort of hiccup that that is forgivable but understanding why they changed the nature of that outcome but still if you separate that uh bueno silva fight holly home four and one in her last five you can't argue with the longevity issue the same fighter she was when she had kicked ronda

rousey no but that's sort of the essence of what makes this fight unique I'm going to get to Kayla Harrison in a quote in a moment and there's plenty of questions about Kayla Harrison and this weight class but I really like the matchup against Holly because it's not just the combined star power and the whole you know historic nature of not just a 300 card but taking these two very accomplished all-time great female combat sports icons and putting them together that matters to me as a fan um but i think it's the right fight at the right time to find out is kayla separate from this weight which we'll get to is she truly ufc worthy in terms of her her skills we've seen her dominate for so long in the pfl

short of course of that one loss to larissa pacheco uh in the championship a couple years back that you know came after of course kayla already scoring two defeats over pacheco but can one loss disprove everything she's accomplished no but she's going to have to step into that octagon and prove it on the ufc level in the same way that eddie alvarez did when he came in and fought a still game Donald Cerrone and came, you know, just, just short and a very interesting and competitive fight. And the same thing really about, you know, Michael Venom page coming over from Bellator, which he will on this year to take on Kevin Holland. And, and the idea of some of these former Bellator chambers, Michael Chandler, another,

when they make the splash sort of later in their career, in their mid thirties, when the tail end of the physical prime is still there, but mentally they're at the top of their game, you want to see them tested right away against a big name and a tough out. And I still think at 42, Holly Holm provides that, especially when you throw in the weight consideration. So I just don't get the outrage, even if it's not your favorite fight, or even if you don't believe in the stock of both fighters. This is unique. This adds perfectly to an already stacked card as sort of an interesting attraction. And, you know, you can't hate on that star power. But topic number two on, I think, why this move and this news matters is,

look, Kayla Harrison's going all in. We got to talk about this weight. She is a 155-pound two-time PFL champion. She cut down to 145 pounds one time in that fight a few years back during the pandemic when PFL was off and she was allowed outside of her contract. This is November of 2020 to fight at Invicta FC 43, where she scored a dominant second round stoppage over Courtney King. That was at featherweight 145. There had been talks for a long time that it's physically impossible for her to cut down to 135.

I think that's a big part of what made this feel like this announcement wasn't going to happen unless Kayla was coming in announced as a new face for the 145 division or my long term idea that's never come to fruition of just combining Bantamweight, featherweight, and then extending another maybe five or 10 pounds after that and having sort of an open women's heavyweight division. That's not going to happen here. So for Kayla to come to the UFC, it appears all indications, including some reporting from Ariel Hawani show that it had to be at 135. Only we've heard her over the last year. I think a lot of people remember the interview she gave Mark Ray Mundy of ESPN,

where she really went in detail and talked about, yes, how hard the idea of this cut is, but also look at where she's at in her career. Two times, she's won the PFL championship, which brings a million dollar prize each time. And she has created her own sort of identity within this space of the best fighters that aren't in the UFC. But she also realizes at 33 that this is the top of the mountain. This is the peak of her mental and physical powers coming together. So it is kind of now or never, even though you can argue that she would have had big business opportunities had she re-signed with the PFL, had she been there for this merger with bellator and these super fights that they're trying to make and of course of course that long-awaited fight with chris cyborg that is yet to come to fruition and now really certainly uh is is under question whether

it ever would but kayla going to bantamweight kayla cutting down two divisions here um this is all in shit and it's not the kind of stuff that uh doesn't come with questions doesn't come with concerns doesn't come with fears who are people who can certainly bring up the fact luke thomas one of them on social media about how high in weight kayla competed in judo at the past and how much weight she carries in just her regular walk around because of so much of that added muscle. But her manager to the stars, meaning Kayla Harrison, Ali Abdelaziz, he told ESPN's Brett Okamoto ahead of this news that Kayla Harrison has tested a weight cut in anticipation of a deal with the UFC to 135, and all parties were pleased with the result of this weight cut.

So yes, there's that old adage that we always remember about the dangers of cutting down in weight, especially when you're more advanced into your fighting career. And we're always, always going to bring up what happened to Roy Jones Jr. in boxing. Was dominated, right? The divisions of 160, 168, 175

had beaten Antonio Tarver in a close fight. Didn't really, I'm sorry, this was before the first Tarver fight. Didn't really, I'm sorry, this was before the first Tarver fight. Didn't really know what direction to go next. Wanted to do something historically great. Did that by moving up to heavyweight, fighting and beating John Ruiz for one of the recognized titles at the time.

It was a handpick opponent and you did see a Roy Jones that came in just shy of 200 pounds, but put on the correct way, the heavyweight mass with muscle. When he came off of that challenge, when he realized he didn't want to defend that title and be an active heavyweight, that it was a one-off to show his greatness, right? Just the second former middleweight champion, along with Bob Fitzsimmons to go on to claim

a piece of the heavyweight crown. And then you also added that Roy Jones turned pro at 154. So it was pretty ridiculous. But when he came back down to light heavyweight, 175 in boxing and fought Tarver that first time, even though Roy Jones gutted it out and won it, you saw the physical toll of cutting down in weight when you're shedding muscle, as opposed to shedding mass or fat or what have you. So it left him weak. He was barely able to hold off Tarver in that first fight.

And then you can certainly argue he had nowhere really to go afterwards ended up getting talked into doing the rematch got knocked out got knocked out in a subsequent fight by glenn johnson and even though he hung on for another couple decades largely ill-advised it was such a key turning point in his career right around the same age as kayla that there can be a legitimate major danger in cutting down that much muscle. But here's the thing. I'm very impressed with Kayla Harrison as a human, and I always have been. Her advocacy for certain things like child sexual abuse and her reveal of the trauma she's endured, her taking on her niece and nephew and becoming their mother because one

of her siblings was unable to, you know, unable to fulfill that role currently while going through some trouble and her commitment to excellence along the way. If you followed her story, she's about as mentally and physically tough as anyone. If anyone can be mentally tough enough to pull off this challenge, it might be her. And as much as it is a danger, and certainly you would want her to do it as healthy and safe, safely as possible and not risk further health complications because of a dramatic move like that. Do you think at this age it's worth that shot? Could have stayed with the PFL and been paid handsomely and was part of super fights.

Maybe they would do another season around her. For all we know, you could have continued not just the idea of her getting a super fight with Cyborg, but the idea of continuing this rivalry with Pacheco after that upset loss, giving Kayla her only MMA loss. But at 33, the window is closing in terms of when she could do this, when it would make sense, when she could have this impact. It's very understandable from the UFC standpoint in terms of her signing this contract. And that's what all reports seem to indicate, including from Helwani, that she had to accept 135 or she wasn't going to be able to come to the UFC in this case. But she's going all in. And in a lot of ways,

that's what we ask of great fighters who are trying to become all-time great. Why did Roy Jones move up to heavyweight when he didn't need to, right? He wanted to find out how great he can be. So I'm not against Kayla doing, taking this chance. And I think taking that chance is what makes this so intriguing along with the added star power facing home the first time.

So we do get sort of a feel at exactly where Kayla is at. She gets to do it at UFC 300, where if this is going to work, if this is a success, could you have asked for any better platform to make your UFC debut and make that moment happen? But no, there's no guarantee that she can make this cut once and look great or make this cut consistently, especially when you hear her talk in the past. After that 145 pound cut down for that Invicta fight in 2020, Kayla had said, like, I can make that fight if I have to for a big fight. I can make that weight. Excuse me.

But she didn't think it was sustainable then. Maybe, maybe because she knew this was eventually one of her goals. Maybe if she started early enough, it can be done in a healthy way. But if anybody could pull it off, it's probably her. But number three here, this is such a shot in the arm to the UFC's women's divisions at the moment. And in some ways, they need that. Look, strawweight has a very historically relevant champion in Zhang Weili who's on her second title reign.

And that division is always, from its kickoff start in 2014, been in a lot of ways the consistent class of the female divisions within UFC. We have no issues with that division. 125 went from being empty with the great Valentina Shevchenko on top to being the deepest women's division in the sport.

But 135 and 145 have been a lot of blah. I mean, look, the great Amanda Nunes has kept these two divisions afloat by defending both titles regularly, by proving her dominance against everyone. But you can argue there was never depth at 145 pounds that that division was only created to try to bring in chris cyborg and it worked ufc originally gave her a chance to try to cut down to 140 in the hopes that she could eventually make the same 135 cut that kayla is going to ambitiously try and she couldn't but they opened up that division for her even though she didn't get to fight for the inaugural crown because she wasn't quite ready i've been critical of the

ufc from the standpoint of the decisions they make about some of these big women's fights including that home gdr inaugural title fight at 145 which was kind of forced right at that time holly holm was coming off two straight losses that bannon went shoved right into a title fight and then really how the 125 pound division started considering the ultimate fighter house, Nico Montano, not her fault. She upset her way to the finals, took on a replacement in Roxanne Modafari won the title. And of course got it stripped in disastrous fashion on being unable to make

weight for a first title defense against Shevchenko, which on paper at the time had Montano, the champion as the biggest underdog in UFC history. So I've been questioned about these decisions. And I questioned, of course, the decision to match Buono Silva and Pennington together, knowing some of the other star power or even higher caliber fighters

that are in this division still. Names like Irene Aldana, who happened to be the one who lost to Amanda Nunes, which led to that abrupt retirement that kind of shocked us and came out of nowhere. But she has rebounded with a win. You've still got the star power of Juliana Pena in this division,

who's probably going to be fighting Rocky Pennington next for the belt when she's healthy. But adding Kayla in under any circumstance is a shot in the arm. If she can make 135 consistently, she's an instant threat to the title and could become the face of this division in a big way. No shortage of opponents, even though that division is not stacked at all. But you do have aging Holm and Durandamy lingering. You do have Aldana, like I mentioned. You've got Peña. You've got Pennington. You've got

Buono Silva, who's going to be back. You've got something to deal with. But I also want to say this because there is the what if of what if Kayla can't make this weight. Although all signs do seem to appear to be that the UFC is going to fold the women's featherweight division. They really have not made a public statement about this yet. You go to UFC.com slash rankings. Well, you're not going to find featherweight rankings because they've never been there since the division started. They've never put out a top 10 in rankings.

But the headlock, the header is still there that this division is still alive. I know after Amanda Nunes laid down the title last year, Dana was quoted in a post by press conference of basically alluding to the idea that the division does not have life in the long run, that it will probably come to an end.

I saw some tweets from Errol Hawane and his reporting that lead you to believe that could be true. But until that official decision is made, we have been asking for a while, what's going to happen with 145? Why is nobody asking about it? Do we all just assume it's going to fade away? What if Kayla Harrison comes in at 135 and looks good whether she wins or loses against home but makes a statement with her presence at ufc 300 is there a chance as long as she's willing to go through the effort of cutting to 135

that if it doesn't work out but she goes you know what through this process i've learned i can make 145 any day of the week because I'm doing it the right way now. And this is what Kayla has admitted in recent interviews, saying when she's tried to cut down in the past four years ago, she wasn't doing it the quote unquote right way. Now she's doing it all in. So let's just say it doesn't work out. Could you suddenly put up a vacant title bout at 145 and make her the face? I think it's something you can do right there.

And could this lead to the idea of recruiting the other top women's featherweights in the world if this goes this way? It's just something to offer because it has been sort of assumed and Don Davis of PFL has sort of announced it that they believe they have the best 145 division in the planet. And especially when you combine Bellator with PFL and you've got Chris Cyborg, you've got Pacheco, you've got Julia Budd, you've got a couple, you know, certainly some other names that that can matter in that space. I think you can argue that, especially considering the UFC has seemingly no one at women's featherweight right now. But the PFL contracts aren't as restrictive

as UFC is in terms of the idea of free agency and making the jump. Once you get into the UFC, they become restrictive. But I wonder if that could lead to recruitment to that division, having life again or some form of women's heavyweight. It's something to think about, even though Kayla is committed to the 135 cut. Reminder, Cyborg was committed to that cut, too. And she tried 140 and she won a fight there. Right.

She showed she can do it, as I mentioned earlier. So something to think about. My final point on why this Kayla signing sort of matters is, look, it's not lost on UFC that Don Davis and PFL has made some bold statements that them buying Bellator and bringing and merging the rosters

and ambitiously trying to create not just an even better Bellator, I'm sorry, even better PFL season format, a pay-per-view division and a third revenue stream with the Bellator or I'm sorry, even better PFL season format, a pay-per-view division, and a third revenue stream with the Bellator International Championship Series. And of course, all the ideas of growth they want to do with PFL Africa and all those things.

We got to see if that can work, right? If there's money to be made there. But at the very least here, it's PFL putting their flag down and saying, hey, UFC, we just re-signed on the same network as you. We're here. We've got Nganou and Jake Paul. We're going to be aggressive in free agency and we're looking to compete.

They're not trying to be number two. They're trying to be number one, whether that's Illidbuzz, whether that's whatever. This signing is a bit of a power move from the UFC in this war. If it is a war, just to kind of jab back at PFL and remind them where they are in this space, where they are in the power hierarchy on their own network of ESPN. Because I thought it was a shrewd signing from UFC to get Michael Venom Page at the time they did when he's sort of attempting to make his own Michael Chandler end of career move to find out how great he can be. And now you're going to add in Kayla Harrison.

Those are two very large assets that could have been two of the most important fighters in the PFL slash Bellator stable. And now you got them here in UFC. And it is interesting the way that this went down. And remember when Kayla Harrison was a free agent last time, I believe that was 2021. She was a restricted free agent. So there were, you know, the idea out there that UFC wasn't willing to back up the truck to her. They gave her a, an offer, a UFC offer. And ultimately PFL was able to match it and she had to stay. But now that the contract's over, it is interesting. There was a tweet from Ariel Hawane as he broke the story.

And he said, I asked Don Davis to the PFL, how the difference of opinion on the end of Kayla Harrison's contract was ultimately resolved. And what that difference of opinion is the idea that Davis was under the belief that Harrison had one more fight on her deal. Harrison and her team was under the belief they didn't, but how they ultimately resolved this according to Ariel and leading to her signing was Don Davis saying, we chose not to stand in her way of leaving for UFC. I support that.

This is the kind of stuff that we're, I mean, this is why there's a class action lawsuit against the UFC from fighters who felt that not only were they underpaid for their duty and the job performed, but that they were underrepresented, that essentially the monosynopsistic nature, if I just created a word that even John S. Nash

isn't aware of, you know, they've got a monopoly there. Has it been on all the up and up? No. The reason why this court, this trial is going to happen is because they, that side believes they can prove that the UFC has boxed people out in ways

that isn't fully legal in the system. It's very interesting here because Harrisonrison could have could have got i mean say davis could have gotten that way and blocked harrison but in reality what would if he had done he would have continued to make things worse for the fighters when he knew kayla didn't want to be there anymore and knew she wanted the challenge of the ufc so i applaud him not keeping her an unnecessary additional fight. Even that additional fight could have been a pay-per-view against Chris Cyborg that could have kicked off the PFL pay-per-view series. Because let's remember, they had wanted Francis Ngannou

to do that in MMA or in a mixed rules fight with Deontay Wilder to kick off the year. But he's getting too many opportunities in real boxing, including of course, his March fight with Anthony Joshua that should have gone to pull the upset. He'd be fighting for the, for the undisputed championship. I mean, it's that simple. It's that's the Saudi Arabian plan in terms of their investment in the heavyweights. I like that Don Davis didn't get in the way because whether the PFL succeeds or not, and they're being very ambitious, including the signing of Francis and sort of giving him the keys to the kingdom, letting him redefine the layout of fighters rights, letting him sit on the board, right? At representing the fighters, letting him be the chairman of PFL Africa, letting him sort of basically change, basically say, I'm coming to you as a free agent because I don't like the way that things were straight up in the past. Davis could have could have continued to make that problem worse.

But it's the company image right now and the message that they're trying to be almost a safe place in free agency. If you're unhappy in the UFC, come find out what we can do. We'll give you the split of the revenue on pay-per-view, all of that. Again, I don't know if this is going to work for PFL, but I do don davis for not getting in the way of something caleb did did great business for pfl she she won the 2019 pfl championship of course they didn't go during the pandemic she came back in 21 and won it again and she was dominant all the way into the finals of 22 until she lost to pacheco um this is big news this is big news so um definitely want to see where it goes definitely want to see

what this means for the future of the ufc's women's band weight maybe even women's featherweight division and i have to say when you look at this ufc 300 card as it stands right now january 24th you know less than three months out it is coming together nicely i still believe it needs one more and needs a title fight. It needs something huge. You're going to have Zhong Wei Li versus Yan Xiaonan as a co-main or first of three title fights. You're going to have the BMF fight between Justin Gaethje and Max Holloway, which is business. It's blockbuster. It's all action.

I think you've got to have a third title fight. And personally, I think that title fight needs two main events. So I don't think it should be Leon Edwards, Bilal Muhammad. And despite some comments from Tom Aspinall lately, it doesn't seem like Stipe is willing to fight him at 300 he only wants Jon Jones so could could it be Aspinall against somebody could it be Poetan who knows could it be Adesanya coming back against DDP in a quick turnaround there's certainly options out there although they're getting fewer and fewer with how busy the spring and late winter schedule is starting for the UFC in 2024. But 300 is coming together from a depth standpoint.

Don't forget about Charles Oliveira, Armand Saryukian, Yuri Prochazka versus Alexander Rakic, Calvin Cater, Aljamain Sterling, which no one's talking about, and Aljo's feather debut. I even like Devison Fegeredo versus Cody Garbrandt. And of course, you've got the recently added Jim Miller versus Bobby green. So 300 is coming together. And for Kayla Harrison, the first American to win gold at the Olympics and judo, a two time gold medalist and a two division champion at PFL. This is her all in moment where we find out how great she can be.

So thank you for tuning in Brian Campbell here. Reminder morning combat will be once a week on Mondays for the remainder of January. Going to be taking some time off in February as we move some things around, clean some things up and get ready for our March rebrand. But we'll be here ahead of the biggest events and after them previewing and reviewing, and we'll be jumping in and out of course, for the biggest latest news that drops in Luke Thomas and myself, your boy, BC.

Thank you for watching April 13th, UFC 300. Boy, it's getting excited. Can't wait to see it.