Kayla Harrison Responds to Julianna Pena’s Accusations of PED Use

While Kayla Harrison is irked by Julianna Pena’s accusations of performance enhancing drug use, she is taking it as a compliment.

Pena is expected to challenge Raquel Pennington for the women’s bantamweight title at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City, Utah in October. Meanwhile, Harrison, who made her promotional debut with a submission win over Holly Holm at UFC 300 this past April, is considered to be the top contender for the next shot at the title.

Pena recently hurled accusations of PED use at Harrison and all female fighters in the ex-PFL champion’s gym, American Top Team. While PED allegations are nothing new for Harrison, the two-time Olympic gold medallist judoka can’t help being annoyed. Harrison claims to have been tested for the first time at 12 years of age and has never since failed a single drug test. Harrison claims Pena’s allegations are a built-in excuse for when she beats “The Venezuelan Vixen” in their potential clash in the future.

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“It blows my mind that… It pisses me off. No. 1 it pisses me off because never once have I tested positive for anything, ever, in the history of my very long drug-testing career,” Harrison said on "The MMA Hour.”

“And No. 2, don’t f—-ing 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. And I have always competed clean. I carry myself to a high standard, and I know that I haven’t always competed against people who were clean, but I’m not going to throw accusations out just because I feel like I think they’re not clean. That’s bulls—t, and I think it’s bulls—t because she’s just building in an excuse for when I whoop her ass. So, I’m annoyed by it, and at the same time, what a compliment. I’m 100% natty and you all think I’m on steroids.”

Pena had also called out Harrison for not attending an anti-doping “thing” at International Fight Week last month. Harrison explained why she was exempted from attending what she claims was a “stupid info commercial.” Harrison seemingly didn’t find it very important to begin with, having been tested consistently throughout her career — sometimes too frequently. Harrison further claimed to have been engaged by the UFC on another assignment related to her being the face of the division.

“I got drug tested four times in the span of one month [at one point]… And that’s also why I didn’t stay for the stupid info commercial for drug testing,” Harrison said. “Unlike her I actually have fans. So I had something I had to go do that the UFC had asked me to do. So, it’s hard to be the ‘it’ girl, the new face of the weight class. So I didn’t have to stay for the [drug testing info commercial]… We told them [the UFC], they knew. There was like scheduling… You know how it is with [that]…”