Kayla Harrison announced her mma transition a while back. The one time roommate of Ronda Rousey will be making her mixed martial arts debut at a PFL event in June. Her first opponent will be Brittney Elkin. Elkin is listed on sherdog as
HEIGHT
5’11”
180.34 CM
WEIGHT
145 LBS
65.77 KG
According to sources, Harrison is able to make 145 pounds. However, for her debut, her team felt like it would make more sense to have her fight at her walking around weight, which is approximately 156 pounds.
Meanwhile Harrison is 5’8″ (172.72 CM) got gold medals in judo in the over 78 kilogram division in both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
Elkin (3-4) is 2-2 in her last four fights. She most recently lost to Amanda Bell at Bellator 181 in July 2017.
Harrison recently admitted struggling with post Olympic depression:
“I didn’t know how it worked. I finished with the Olympics and I knew that I was done. I knew that I wasn’t going to go for another one and I was a little bit lost in my life,” Harrison said Monday on The MMA Hour. “I didn’t have a goal, I didn’t have something to wake up for. I was struggling. I was very depressed.
“Post-Olympic depression is a real thing. It’s sort of like — not coming home from war, because that’s much more traumatic — but when you’re a Type A person and you’re an Olympic athlete and you train your whole life for one moment, even if you win, that high is so high that when you come off of that, it’s like you’re low. You just don’t know what to do with yourself. So I was not training, I wasn’t working out, I was laying in bed all day everyday, watching stupid TV shows.”
In addition to this Kayla’s journey is quite relevant to the spirit of time now. Harrison began working with judo coach Daniel Doyle, who would later reportedly abuse her until she was 16.
“Then the FBI got involved and he served 10 years in federal prison, he pleaded guilty, and he just got out actually right before the 2016 Olympics and I decided I had to write a book about all of it so that people hopefully don’t have to go through this.”
