Harrison reveals neck surgery crisis that nearly derailed UFC 334 title fight with Nunes

Kayla Harrison has spoken candidly about the physical and mental toll of her neck surgery, revealing she underwent a two-level spinal fusion just two weeks before she was originally scheduled to fight Amanda Nunes — and that she genuinely feared her career might be over.

Harrison, the UFC bantamweight champion and two-time Olympic judo gold medallist, was pulled from UFC 324 after the severity of her condition became clear. She and Nunes have since been rescheduled for UFC 334 on 14 November in New York, where Harrison’s bantamweight title will be on the line.

“To be honest, it was rough at the beginning,” Harrison said on the Deep Waters podcast. “It was such a big surgery and I went 10 years without having surgery. In the last four years I’ve had four surgeries back to back to back to back, and this one was the most serious. I kind of was just like, ‘Dude, am I ever going to be OK again?’ It got to the point where I was questioning if I was ever going to feel like myself again. But I’m back. I’m back.”

Harrison had initially hoped for a disc replacement procedure, which she understood to offer better long-term mobility, with the aim of returning to competition as quickly as possible. But once she was examined, her surgeon ruled it out immediately.

“I have five herniated discs,” Harrison explained. “I wanted to do the disc replacement because I hear that’s much better, and then when the doc went in, he was like, ‘No, you can’t.’”

The situation had deteriorated sharply in the days leading up to her original fight date. Harrison described being unable to lift her arm and suffering severe nerve pain that left her sleeping only around three hours across five nights. The UFC ultimately directed her to travel to New York for specialist assessment, where her surgeon told her she needed to go under the knife immediately.

“I can’t lift my arm, I’m getting lightning bolts,” she said. “The last five days I think I slept maybe three hours because I would fall asleep and then the lightning bolts. It’s the worst pain ever. The doctor looked at all the stuff and said, ‘Yeah, you need surgery now. When do you want to have it?’ I had surgery the next morning.”

Harrison and Nunes have been on a collision course for years. The two trained together during Nunes’s reign as the simultaneous UFC bantamweight and featherweight champion, while Harrison was building her own legacy in PFL. Harrison made the jump to the UFC in 2024, by which point Nunes had retired — only for the Brazilian legend to announce a comeback in 2025, setting up the long-anticipated meeting.

With the surgery now behind her, Harrison says she is confident heading into November. “I feel awesome,” she said. “I’m back.”