Never one to back down from a fight, physical or verbal, UFC bantamweight Kayla Harrison fired back at former champion Julianna Peña and her accusation of PED use.
“It pisses me off,” Harrison said on The MMA Hour.
“Number one, it pisses me off because never once have I tested positive for anything, ever, in the history of my very long drug-testing career. And number two, don’t f*cking say things like that if you don’t have hard evidence. That’s a serious thing to talk about, to me. I take cheating very seriously.”
Peña, who is rumored to be fighting for the title against Raquel Pennington at UFC 307, accused Harrison and American Top Team fighters of cheating.
“Stay off the needle, bro. Maybe not now, but definitely in the past. Absolutely. No question,” Peña told The MMA Hour.
“I just already have the mindset that people are cheating. Especially from ATT, 100% at ATT. When Dan Lambert flew me out there after I won The Ultimate Fighter, they literally told me that all the girls are in the bathroom shooting each other in the ass with the steroids.”
Harrison (17-1) has been tested the majority of her life saying she’s been testing with USADA for over 20 years starting at 12-years-old. She’s never tested positive for PEDs, and any issues she’s had with USADA were due to location issues.
“I remember it vividly because they went to my middle school and I was actually home sick that day. I was in the top five on the national roster for judo, and once you enter the top five, you automatically go into USADA’s drug testing pool. I’ve never failed a single test, never had anything,” she said.
Fighters these days will say just about anything to hype up a potential matchup. Harrison refuses accuse someone of PEDs to hype a fight.
“I would never make false accusations, because what I say, the public takes in and now is going to spew out because Julianna Pena says I’m on steroids. So to me, I’m not ever going to say something about someone unless I know it’s true, because I’m in the spotlight and people listen to what I say. To me it just shows no class,” said Harrison.
“I know the truth and I’m happy with everything I’ve accomplished and I’m going to accomplish. And I’ll never fail a drug test. You know why? Because I don’t f*cking cheat.”
