Kayla Harrison says Ali Abdelaziz, Dan Lambert and others did "everything in their power" to make sure Amanda Nunes fight does not happen
Kayla Harrison has expressed a desire to fight former women's two-division UFC champion Amanda Nunes on several occasions in the past.
However, Harrison recently revealed that her manager Ali Abdelaziz, American Top Team owner Dan Lambert, and her coaches apparently did "everything in their power" to prevent a potential clash materializing. Until Nunes recently decided to part ways with ATT, 'The Lioness' and Harrison were teammates.
Despite training together and having a lot of respect for Nunes, Harrison wanted to fight the Brazilian because of her dream of competing against the greatest fighters on the planet. During a recent interaction with ESPN's Marc Raimondi, Harrison opened up on why the fight with Nunes never came to fruition:
"I mean everyone was doing everything in their power to make sure it didn't [happen] you know. My manager, Dan Lambert, all the coaches at ATT, all of my advisors, all of the people that I'm close to [didn't want the fight to happen]... Obviously Ali out of respect for ATT didn't [push for the fight]. [He] was trying to be respectful and wasn't pushing to make it happen. My coaches didn't want it to happen, Dan didn't want it to happen so it was not really something that I was thinking about majorly, I mean I think about it all the time because I think she's the greatest so, like, I think about it but it wasn't something that I felt confident was gonna happen."
Check out the interview below:
Kayla Harrison promised to be matched against worthy opponent if she manages to win upcoming PFL season
Kayla Harrison recently signed a lucrative multi-fight deal with the PFL. Initially, it seemed like the Olympic gold medalist judoka was close to joining Bellator. However, the PFL later matched the European promotion's bid to capture her prized signature.
🏻Congratulations to @KaylaH @PFLMMA @DonnDavisPFL @PeteMurrayPFL on historic new deal! Excited to see Kayla’s journey to history👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2022/03/kayla-…
Kayla Harrison wants to compete against the best female fighters in the world. The PFL has apparently promised to rope in the greatest talents from across the world so they can share the cage with the undefeated fighter. Once she wins the PFL season, Harrison expects to fight one of the biggest names in the world.
Kayla Harrison says the PFL has promised her they will do whatever it takes to bring her ‘big name’ competition under her new deal:
“They don’t care if it’s on planet Earth or planet Pluto, they want to make that fight happen just as much as I do” mmafighting.com/2022/3/8/22967…
In a recent interaction with ESPN SportsCenter, she said:
"I’ve got four fights to win the title again and then I’m excited for hopefully a big fight with a big name. The PFL has assured me and promised me that they don’t care if they have to cross promote, co-promote, they don’t care if it’s on planet Earth or planet Pluto, they want to make that fight happen just as much as I do. (h/t MMA Fighting)"