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An MMA veteran recently weighed in on Kayla Harrison's run at bantamweight and shared his thoughts on what can possibly force her UFC retirement. He noted that Harrison will now have to meet other requirements as women's bantamweight champion, which could make things increasingly difficult.
Harrison earned an impressive second-round submission win over Julianna Pena to become the new women's bantamweight champion at UFC 316 last Saturday. There was a lot made about her difficult weight cut to 135 pounds, which she successfully made for the first time in her career. In the days that followed, the former Olympic gold medalist opened up about her struggles to make the weight.
In the latest episode of his On Paper podcast, Anthony Smith highlighted the grueling physical toll that Harrison's regimen and weight cuts can have on her. 'Lionheart' mentioned that he doesn't believe the women's bantamweight champion will be able to sustain that much longer, especially considering she has to make the 135-pound limit for title fights. He said:
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"It's fascinating. I listened to something that [Harrison] said, where it took her 15 weeks of dieting, she couldn't miss one workout of one day. Do you what her cheat meal was?... During the entire camp, she ate three spoonfulls of peanut butter... Human nature, like, human's can't sustain that. It's not sustainable. She can do it a few times and that's probably it."
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Check out Anthony Smith's comments regarding Kayla Harrison below (40:51):
Anthony Smith says Kayla Harrison's situation is why UFC should have kept featherweight division
Anthony Smith also believes Kayla Harrison's current situation of having a difficult weight cut to make 135 pounds is another example of why the UFC should have kept their women's featherweight division.
The women's featherweight division was cut after Amanda Nunes' retirement, which is why 145-pound competitors like Harrison were forced to compete at bantamweight instead. In the aforementioned episode, Smith mentioned that had the UFC committed more, perhaps the division could have developed:
"I wish we would have really committed to this 145-pound division... Maybe it wasn't going to be the most competitive or the most exciting... but if we could have just kept it around and let it happen and let the people grow into it." [41:33]
