UFC bantamweight contender, Kayla Harrison, has never failed a drug exam in her athletic career, dating all the way back to her medal-winning Olympic runs in 2012 and 2016.
But the former PFL champion has yet to pass Julianna Pena’s eye test.
“The Venezuelan Vixen” recently accused her bantamweight rival of using steroids ahead of their UFC 316 co-headlining title fight, scheduled for Sat., June 7, 2025 inside Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Professional jealousy?
“The biggest indicator for me as somebody who’s clean is somebody who is stable,” coach Mike Brown told MMA Fighting. “Their body looks the same over prolonged periods of time. [Kayla] is always the same. She doesn’t change. Of course, when you’re cutting weight it’s going to change but like somebody who’s taking illegal substances, you can see. Their body changes in a week. You’ll see ups and downs in people taking testosterone or something like this.”
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 (temporarily?) retired from competition.
Brown insists the “clean” Harrison is “a freak among freaks.”
“People just think because they look at themselves and how they’re built and how they were brought up, that’s not the top of the food chain,” Brown continued. “There are people out there that are not normal. Just like in basketball, there are athletes that are [7-foot-6, 7-foot-7], there are athletes that are unbelievably muscular or athletes that have unbelievable conditioning that seems unworldly. Just because you can’t do it, doesn’t mean somebody else can’t.”
Pena remains unimpressed, with or without steroids.
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.
