Kayla Harrison “shocked” by double-meaning conversation about her between fan and Arman Tsarukyan at UFC 300 fan Q&A
Kayla Harrison addressed an uncomfortable moment with a fan and Arman Tsarukyan leading into her UFC debut.
At a fan Q&A in the build-up to UFC 300, Harrison and Tsarukyan fielded a myriad of questions from the public with one standing out for all the wrong reasons.
A fan got to the mic and in Russian, asked Tsarukyan a sexual question in relation to Harrison. Megan Olivi, who was also on stage, asked if he would translate and the lightweight simply mentioned how it was a stupid question and to move on.
The former PFL champion addressed this situation on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani after multiple social media accounts began tagging Harrison in posts giving an English translation to the fan's crude comment.
Offering her perspective on this situation, Kayla Harrison said,
"It was disheartening and at first I was super embarrassed and shocked by it. But then I just was like you know what, f*** it. I'm just gonna keep being me and I'm gonna say something about it when the time is right because I feel like that's wrong.
"I want to help change the landscape of the sport. Not just for me but for future female fighters. It was on International Women's Day to boot, you know [laughs]. Like what are we talking [about]?"
Check out Kayla Harrison commenting on the inappropriate Q&A moment below:
Kayla Harrison and her UFC 300 assignment
The 33-year-old has fought almost exclusively in the Professional Fighters League, except one bout for Invicta FC while PFL was inactive amid the global pandemic.
April 13th will be the date of her long-awaited first foray into the octagon and the former multi-time Olympic judo gold medalist collides with a familiar name. Holly Holm will stand on the opposite end of the cage from Harrison in the coming weeks at UFC 300. The former UFC women's bantamweight champion looks to play spoiler for the former PFL star's much anticipated UFC debut.
The Ohio native also has a lot of discourse surrounding her weight cut heading into the Holm fight. The fight is contracted at bantamweight and Harrison has fought almost entirely at lightweight with one featherweight and one 150-pound catchweight bout in her career.