Dana White addresses Kayla Harrison's brutal weight cut and possibility of Amanda Nunes clash at featherweight
Dana White recently shared his thoughts on Kayla Harrison's difficult weight cut to make 135 pounds and the possibility of her bout against Amanda Nunes being contested at featherweight. White didn't shut down the idea and noted that every scenario will be discussed.
Harrison achieved her goal at UFC 316 after submitting Julianna Pena to become the new women's bantamweight champion. During his post-fight interview, the two-time Olympic gold medalist invited Nunes into the octagon and the duo made their highly anticipated clash official as 'The Lioness' confirmed her plans to return.
Harrison had been open about how brutal the weight was to make the bantamweight title fight limit for the first time in her career. In his post-event press conference via The Mac Life, White mentioned that the UFC brass will get together to discuss her upcoming bout against Nunes and evaluate whether to contest it at 145 pounds followed by a rematch at 135 pounds. He said:
"I don't know [if we will entertain contesting the fight at featherweight], we haven't got into that that. Tonight just sort of happened. You don't know who's going to win, you know, Julianna's a little maniac, so who knows how that fight going to go. But now that we know that Amanda really does want to fight her, we'll start figuring out all the details."
Check out Dana White's comments below (7:37):
Dana White praises Kayla Harrison's accomplishments
Dana White also heaped praise on Kayla Harrison after her submission win over Julianna Pena to capture the UFC women's bantamweight championship.
In the aforementioned video, White mentioned that Harrison accomplished an impressive feat, but will await the result of her upcoming bout against Amanda Nunes before labeling her the greatest combat athlete of all time:
"Well, [Harrison] just won tonight. Let's let her defend a couple of times. Then, obviously she's gonna fight the GOAT, so we'll see how that plays out. But, yeah, what she's accomplished as an athlete period is awesome." [7:07]
Check out Kayla Harrison's post-fight interview at UFC 316 below: