Kayla Harrison's manager sets two-division title plan for Amanda Nunes with UFC 316 win

USA Today

3 days ago

Kayla Harrison's manager sets two-division title plan for Amanda Nunes with UFC 316 win
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Manager Ali Abdelaziz previews UFC 316, gives mass client update
Dominance MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz talks to MMA Junkie's Mike Bohn about Islam Makhachev, Movsar Evloev, Magomed Ankalaev and UFC 316 clients Kayla Harrison, Patchy Mix and more.
MORRISTOWN, N.J. – If Kayla Harrison can capture the women's bantamweight title at UFC 316, then it appears her reward will be a fight with the greatest female athlete in MMA history, Amanda Nunes.
When promotion began for Harrison (18-1 MMA, 2-0 UFC) to challenge Julianna Peña (11-5 MMA, 8-3 UFC) for gold on Saturday at Prudential Center in Newark (ESPN+ pay-per-view), former two-division titleholder Nunes, who retired in June 2023, showed up in the front row for the first press conference between the two.
Shortly thereafter, it became clear why Nunes was there. She said she intended to challenge the winner of Peña vs. Harrison in a comeback fight, which she is already apparently training for.
According to Harrison's longtime manager Ali Abdelaziz of Dominance MMA, the plan doesn't stop by simply luring Nunes back for one fight. He said he wants his client Harrison beat Nunes at women's bantamweight and women's featherweight in order to leave no doubt about who is superior.
"This is what I want her to do, this is the road map: I want Kayla to win the title on Saturday and Amanda Nunes will come back," Abdelaziz told MMA Junkie on Wednesday. "We will fight for this 145 title. Kayla will beat her at 145. Amanda will cut down to 135. Kayla will beat her at 135, then Kayla will have two UFC championships. This is what I want to do.
"Of course we have to talk to UFC and of course Julianna Peña, she is tough as nails. She is not easy. She is not a walk over. She is going to stick around, she is going to take a lot of punishment and is going to be tough. But is what I would love for Kayla to do and after that I would like Kayla to go to WWE and she's going to get a WWE title, too. Why not?"
Despite all the bold ambitions for the future, Abdelaziz said he's more than aware that Harrison must first handle her business against Peña at UFC 316.
Both women expressed the utmost confidence in their ability to win during media day to kick off fight week, but naturally Abdelaziz has faith in his client to emerge with gold, and do it in lopsided fashion.
"There's something different about her this week," Abdelaziz said. "She has more energy. Since I met Kayla she didn't change. She's the same person. She just gets grumpy on fight week, and this fight week she's been awesome. She has a great energy. She's lifting everyone up. There's no negativity and she's going to go in there and – I respect Julianna Peña. She's tough as nails. She's a world champion. You have to put respect on her name. But I think Kayla is going to make a bloodbath. I think it's going to be a bloodbath. Kayla has every intention to make her pay for everything Julianna said. It's a great build up and I think they are almost taking over the main event."