PFL Chairman Donn Davis believes the recent bitterness with Kayla Harrison is just a misunderstanding.
Harrison, a two-time Olympic gold medalist judoka, began her MMA career in the PFL, fighting for the promotion for five years and winning two lightweight tournaments and becoming the face of the organization. But earlier this year, Harrison finally left her longtime promotion to jump over to the UFC.
Earlier this month, Harrison made her sophomore outing in her new promotion, fighting Ketlen Vieira at UFC 307, but prior to her fight, Davis made headlines by saying that he didn’t like that Harrison “ran from” potential fights with Cris Cyborg and Larissa Pacheco. Harrison, of course, took offense and even Pacheco wasn’t pleased with Davis’s remarks. But the PFL Chairman says the entire thing is a big misunderstanding.
“What I said had immense respect and immense context, but when it gets cut down in social media, was taken completely out of context,” Davis told MMA Fighting. “So I’ll try to re-put it in context again, but I’m sure it will re-get cut out of context.
“To repeat, I only said three things. One, we’re immensely proud that we developed her from scratch. She was one of my favorite fighters and I think she’s one of the greatest fighters of all time in the women’s divisions. So first of all, Dana never says that.
“Number two, we made her an offer to be extremely high paid and to spend her whole career here, and to do anything she wanted. I have a huge amount of respect and basically offered her a blank check and a blank ticket, not just economically but post her career. Dana never says that. That’s because we wanted her.
“And number three, we offered her bigger fights here than she has at the UFC. Cyborg, bigger fight. Pacheco, bigger fight. They’re bigger than the two fights she just had. Nobody would disagree with that. So why is she at the UFC? That’s what I said.
“So those are the three things I said. Those are all respectful, factual, and pretty straightforward. So why did she go to the UFC? I don’t know. I don’t understand. I think it has to be there is a brand there that validates her and our brand isn’t that big yet. So that’s it. But nothing but very factual respect and very factual desire that I wish on fan’s behalf that we could have given the biggest fight in the world.”
For her part, Harrison has been very clear about why she wanted to come to the UFC, stating that she wants to win the title and cement her legacy in MMA. But Davis clearly believes Harrison could have done so in the PFL.
“Now that Cyborg has clearly cemented her stature as the GOAT, everybody wants to see Kayla vs. Cyborg,” Davis said. “It’s a bigger fight than Kayla will ever have unless Nunes comes out of retirement, and the person who stopped that is Kayla.
“It doesn’t make me any money putting on that fight, but I wanted to put it on for fans. I’ve been trying for five years and I couldn’t get Cyborg here. Then I bought the whole company to get Cyborg here, and then Kayla leaves! So I don’t understand it and that’s all I’ve expressed.”
Ultimately though, Davis recognizes that however he intended his comments to come out, they were received very differently. And while Davis doesn’t believe he said anything untoward, he also admits that if he could go back, he probably wouldn’t have said anything at all.
“How I talked about this is not even close to how Dana White talks about fighters. This is not remotely how he’s talked about Francis... And two, I probably should have said nothing, but I was trying to explain the situation. If I had to do it over again, my mistake. No good has come from it.
“I have no desire to do anything negative about Kayla. I have no desire to have a bunch of click bait that’s negative on the PFL. So my mistake saying anything, trying to put this in context. My sole goal was truly to give fans the biggest fight in female history, Cyborg vs. Kayla. I spent — like Ahab on the great white whale — so much energy chasing this fight, to have it go through my grasp, kills me. It kills me.”
