Kayla Harrison has just reached the peak of the MMA world by becoming the UFC bantamweight world champion at UFC 316 on June 7th, 2025. It represents years of hard work by Harrison and it’s actually the second time that she’s won the highest honor that a sport has to offer. She won a pair of gold medals in the Olympics for Judo in 2012 and 2016, announcing her decision to do MMA after her second victory. She spent the first 5 years of her career fighting for PFL, winning two million-dollar tournaments and amassing an incredible 16-1 professional record in the process.
Harrison made her debut as one of the big stars of UFC 300, submitting former champion Holly Holm in her very first fight for the promotion. After another win over Ketlen Vieira, she booked this fight against Julianna Pena for the UFC bantamweight title. She was coming in as the favorite anyway thanks to her incredible career so far, but the fight was still surprisingly one-sided. Harrison started strong and was even getting the better of the striking, but she landed a takedown in the first round to get the fight where she wanted it. That was when Pena hit her with a pair of illegal upkicks and was deducted a point, meaning that the first round actually went down as a 10-8 for Harrison.
That built up a pretty big lead going into the second round and unless Pena could get back into the fight immediately, Harrison was going to run away with it. Harrison went back to using her leg kicks to win the striking exchanges in the second round, but clinched up even earlier this time around. She landed several knees before getting the takedown and immediately transitioned to heavy ground and pound, forcing Pena to give up her back. Harrison ended up in half-guard and started working on an arm-triangle choke, before switching to the kimura and cranking hard on it to get the finish with just 7 seconds left in the round.
UFC 316 Full Results
Merab Dvalishvili defeats Sean O’Malley via Submission – North-south Choke
Kayla Harrison defeats Julianna Pena via Submission – Kimura
Joe Pyfer defeats Kelvin Gastelum via Decision – Unanimous
Mario Bautista defeats Patchy Mix via Decision – Unanimous
Kevin Holland defeats Vicente Luque via Submission – Anaconda Choke
Preliminary Card
Joshua Van defeats Bruno Silva via TKO – Punches
Azamat Murzakanov defeats Brendson Ribeiro via TKO – Punches
Waldo Cortes-Acosta defeats Serghei Spivac via Decision – Unanimous
Andreas Gustafsson defeats Khaos Williams via Decision – Unanimous
Wang Cong defeats Ariane da Silva via Decision – Unanimous
Yoo Joo-Sang defeats Jeka Sarigh via Knockout – Punch
Quillan Salkilld defeats Yanal Ashmouz via Decision – Unanimous
MarQuel Mederos defeats Mark Choinski via Decision – Unanimous
