Kayla Harrison on Larissa Pacheco: She’s No Joke

Kayla Harrison may be a few days away from making history as the first three-time Professional Fighters League champion.

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Harrison (15-0, 14-0 PFL) has destroyed all kinds of competition on her path to glory. This year, the two-time Olympic gold medal judoka overcame Marina Mokhnatkina via decision in May before smashing Kaitlin Young with punches and submitting Martina Jindrova with an arm-triangle choke at PFL 6 and PFL 9, respectively. In this year’s lightweight final at the upcoming 2022 Season PFL Championships, Harrison will face Larissa Pacheco for the third time. Their two previous encounters have ended with Harrison’s hand raised following unanimous decision victories. While Harrison expressed some hope to see a superfight with women’s mixed martial arts royalty like UFC two-division ruler Amanda Nunes and Bellator MMA featherweight champ Cristiane Justino, a.k.a. “Cris Cyborg,” her mind is focused solely on her upcoming opponent.

“Yeah, hopefully [steps are being made towards those superfights]. That’s not my job though. My job is to fight. It's the promoter's job to make the fights, it’s my job to fight. I have a big fight coming up on Nov. 25. Larissa is no joke. She's young, she's hungry, she's gotten better and she's coming to take my head off. She has nothing to lose. My focus is on that fight and then everything else after.”

Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:16) Her chickens
(00:45) How she spent her Halloween
(01:04) Facing Pacheco for the third time
(02:23) Training with Felicia Spencer
(03:03) Having two more fights on her PFL contract
(03:28) Cutting to 145 pounds
(04:27) Whether she’s still interested in facing Julia Budd
(05:02) Why she signed with PFL after testing free agency
(05:46) Commenting on the rumored superfights with Amanda Nunes and Cris Cyborg
(06:57) Shouting out Marlon Moraes’ PFL debut
(07:18) Outro