Kayla Harrison clears up Juliana Pena's PED accusations: "I don't f*cking cheat"
Kayla Harrison put forth a dominant performance in her promotional debut at UFC 300, defeating former UFC women's bantamweight champion Holly Holm via second-round submission. But the two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo recently faced accusations of performance-enhancing drug usage from Julianna Pena.
She responded to the former women's bantamweight champion's claims during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, stating:
"Number one, it pisses me off because never once have I tested positive for anything, ever, in the history of my very long drug testing career. And number two, don't f**king say things like that if you don't have hard evidence. That's a serious thing to talk about. To me. I take cheating very seriously and I have always competed clean. I carry myself to a high standard."
She also said:
"And I think it's just bulls**t because she's building an excuse for when I whoop her a**... I just don't care anymore. I know the truth and I'm happy with everything I've accomplished and I'm going to accomplish. I'll never fail a drug test. You know why? Because I don't f**king cheat."
Check out Kayla Harrison's full comments on Julianna Pena's PED accusations below:
Pena is set to return from more than two years of inactivity when she challenges Raquel Pennington for the women's bantamweight title at UFC 307 in October. Harrison does not have a bout booked, however, she is expected to receive the next opportunity to challenge for the belt.
Julianna Pena advises Kayla Harrison to 'stay off the needle'
Kayla Harrison's weight was a big topic ahead of her promotional debut at UFC 300. Julianna Pena accused the two-time Olympic gold medalist of using steroids during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani.
When asked about how Harrison looked on the scales competing at 135 pounds for the first time in her combat sports career, the former women's bantamweight champion responded:
''Great, strong. Yeah, but stay off the needle, bro... Maybe not now, but definitely in the past, absolutely, there’s no question... At International Fight Week, we all came inside the rooms for the social media scrum... We broke for lunch, the next one up after that was the anti-doping thing.
"Everyone was there, everyone stayed for the first one and then when we came back, everyone stayed for the second one, minus Kayla. She’s the only one that didn’t come back to the anti-doping one."
Check out Julianna Pena's comments on Kayla Harrison below (starting at the 1:22 mark):
Pena alleged that American Top Team is rampant with performance-enhancing drug usage. The No.1-ranked women's bantamweight claimed that after winning The Ultimate Fighter 18, she spent a week training at the gym and was told the female fighters were all in the bathroom injecting steroids.