Kayla Harrison has never failed a drug test in her athletic career.
But the Olympic gold medalist has yet to pass the eye exam administered by current UFC bantamweight champion, Julianna Pena, as they gear up for their UFC 316 pay-per-view (PPV) co-main event on June 7 inside Prudential Center in Newark.
“I want to say what everybody’s thinking on their minds, which is that, of course, she at some point was on steroids and hopefully she cycles off of them before June 7, makes the weight, and pisses clean,” Pena told Ariel Helwani. “Because that’s what I’m going to be doing and I want this fight to be as fair a fight as possible, minus her being a weight bully and cutting the 50 pounds in order to make the weight class.”
Harrison, 34, previously competed in the lightweight division for PFL and has openly admitted to the “torture” of making the bantamweight limit required to compete in UFC. The promotion shuttered its 145-pound weight class after Amanda Nunes retired from competition.
“I cannot confirm 110 percent whether she is or is not on [performance-enhancing drugs], but I will say that back then in the Olympics, she looked like a girl, very feminine, and now she looks super juicy and cut up,” Pena continued. “Like, somebody give that girl a Band-Aid because she’s cut. It doesn’t just happen overnight just because you touched the weights a little bit.”
The 35 year-old Pena (12-5) reclaimed the bantamweight crown by outpointing Raquel Pennington at UFC 307 last October. As for Harrison (18-1), she stands at 2-0 under the UFC banner after scoring back-to-back wins over former champion Holly Holm (UFC 300) and longtime contender Ketlen Vieira (UFC 307).
For the rest of the UFC 316 fight card and PPV lineup click here.
