Kayla Harrison signs multi-year deal with the PFL

The hottest free agent on the MMA market has signed a new deal and she is staying with the PFL. The promotion announced today that Kayla Harrison (12-0) has signed a new multi-year deal that is expected to make her one of the highest paid fighters in the world.

For months, we’ve all wondered where Kayla Harrison would end up. After capturing her second PFL season championship, Harrison announced that she would be testing the open market. Both the UFC and Bellator were interested in bringing her in.

We saw her get the camera treatment with both promotions. The UFC was interested in bringing her in to fight Amanda Nunes, however, Nunes losing to Julianna Pena cooled off the talks. From there, it became a race between the PFL and Bellator.

PFL Deal Done

At one point a few weeks ago, it was thought that Harrison resigning with the PFL was a done deal. PFL was trying to secure a new network deal and they needed to get Harrison back in the fold. However, once they signed their ESPN deal without Harrison, they took their foot off the gas.

That is when Bellator really started to ramp things up. Bellator was interested in bringing in Harrison to have a super-fight with Cris Cyborg. They started to seem like the favorite until last week. Last week, the PFL decided to really up their offer and surpass what Bellator was offering.

Harrison appeared on the MMA Hour yesterday with Ariel Helwani and teased that an announcement would be coming soon. She also expressed her frustrations that her window of fighting the best in the world is coming to a close. When she said that, it really felt like the writing was on the wall.

To be considered the best, Harrison needs to fight Amanda Nunes and Cris Cyborg. With signing this extension with PFL, she’s not going to get to fight either. However, she is getting a huge bag and security for her and her kids. Ultimately, that’s the most important thing and Harrison made the right call.