NEW YORK — Kayla Harrison has admitted she questioned whether she would ever feel like herself again after major neck surgery, as she now prepares to defend her bantamweight belt against Amanda Nunes at UFC 334 on 14 November in New York. The long-awaited meeting of the bantamweight greats was rescheduled after Harrison was forced out of their planned bout at UFC 324, having previously trained together while Nunes dominated the UFC bantamweight and featherweight divisions and Harrison transitioned from two-time Olympic judo champion to two-time PFL tournament champion before joining the UFC in 2024.
Harrison revealed she underwent a two-level fusion to address five herniated discs after initially hoping for a disc replacement, which she believed would offer better longevity and mobility in an attempt to make the original date with Nunes. "I had a two-level fusion," Harrison said on the Deep Waters podcast. "So I have five herniated discs. I wanted to do the disc replacement because I hear that's much better and then when the doc went in, he was like, 'No, you can't.'" She described severe symptoms two weeks before the scheduled fight, saying: "I can't lift my arm, I'm getting lightning bolts. The last five days I think I slept maybe three hours because I would fall asleep and then the lightning bolts. It's the worst pain ever. So finally, the UFC is like, 'Go to New York.' I flew to New York, the doctor looked at all the stuff, he was like, 'Yeah, you need surgery now. When do you want to have it?'" She had surgery the next morning.
"I feel awesome," Harrison said. "To be honest, it was rough at the beginning. I think more just obviously physically, but mentally, it was such a big surgery and I went 10 years without having surgery. I had reconstructive knee surgery in between my two Olympics and then I went 10 years with no surgery, but in the last four years I've had four surgeries back to back to back to back and this one was the most serious. I kind of was just like, 'Dude, am I ever going to be OK again?' It got to the point where I was questioning if I was ever going to feel like myself again. But I'm back. I'm back."
Harrison said she left no stone unturned trying to salvage the first booking with Nunes, who announced her comeback in 2025 after retiring while Harrison was still in the PFL. "I did everything to try to get to the fight," Harrison said. "I was doing monthly stem cell injections, I was doing PT rigorously, then I started doing muscle relaxors, didn't touch it. Then I was doing nerve pain pills, then they gave me heavy duty pain pills, but nothing touched it."
"I'm already satisfied," Harrison said. "It's not about getting the fight. Of course, I want this fight, but I'm satisfied with my career. I had to come to terms with that when I had neck surgery, it sort of went back to pre-kids where it's like, are you able to love yourself if you don't reach all of your goals? Are you still worthy of your own love, Kayla? And I am." She added: "I love fighting. I thought I loved judo and then I met MMA and I love it so much and I know our time is very short. You don't get to do this forever and so I want to make the most of it and I had to fight like hell to get through this neck surgery and just mentally to get back to a place of 'Oh yeah, I am that b*tch.' This is for me. I don't need money. We could do it at ATT, this is just for me. I want to go out there and see what I'm made of. Am I who I say I am?"