Julia Budd returns to action on November 24 at the 2023 PFL Championship, in a match-up that has been hotly anticipated over the past couple of years.
Budd (17-6), a former Bellator MMA women’s featherweight champion, will be taking on two-time PFL lightweight champion Kayla Harrison in Washington, D.C. next month. It’s a fight fans have been awaiting since Budd’s arrival in the promotion, and one that was scheduled once previously, only to fall through due to injury.
“I was super-excited. When they told me, kind of end of August, I was just, like, yes!” Budd told Cageside Press in a recent exclusive interview, asked about getting the booking a second time. “Because I wasn’t sure if they were going to give it to maybe Aspen [Ladd] or somebody else. They were mentioning it, I had seen Ray [Sefo] mentioning that there were a couple potential opponents, and I was asking for it since my last fight. So I was excited.”
“I’m just super-excited that I’m in awesome shape, I’m ready to go and get in there,” Budd added.
A lot has changed since Budd and Harrison were first scheduled to face off in July of 2022. Budd was forced out of the PFL season last year, and failed to make the playoffs in 2023. Shockingly, Harrison was dethroned by Larissa Pacheco last year, and has not competed since.
On the plus side, Julia Budd is picking up right where she left on in terms of preparing for her fellow world champ.
“I think that it was almost starting back where we left off. I was getting some amazing work in down in Seattle with some great wrestling coaches and jiu-jitsu coaches and just training with the team down here for that first fight that was supposed to happen. So it’s been cool because we kind of just started back and things were going really well last year, so yeah just kind of started back,” she noted. Budd added that the situation is similar to a “school assignment that just kind of starts back. The ball starts rolling again. It felt good.”
With Harrison being out so long, the time off could also be a factor, Budd acknowledged.
“It’ll be interesting to see how she deals with it. I’m expecting the very best version of herself. But you never know, because she was do dominant up until the last fight with Pacheco.”
Ahead of the 2023 PFL Championship, rumors continue to swirl that the league may buy up rival Bellator MMA. Having competed for both companies, Budd is looking forward to facing some of the talent she didn’t get to meet in Bellator during her stint there.
“Excited. Some of those fights, it was disappointing to leave Bellator knowing I didn’t get to fight some of the girls they obviously were building but also signing,” Budd admitted. “I would have loved to fight Cat [Zingano], I would have loved to fight Leah McCourt. I would have loved to have a rematch with [Cris] Cyborg. That was one of the reasons to stay with Bellator, like ‘hey is that on the table, that opportunity?'”
At the same time, Budd doesn’t want to see Bellator go away. “I hope Bellator sticks around because it’s an awesome organization.”
Watch our full interview with PFL featherweight Julia Budd above.
