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Kayla Harrison isn’t the main event at UFC 307, but she definitely took center stage during a couple of heated exchanges during the pre-fight press conference on Thursday.

It was almost expected that the two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo would get drawn into a war of words with Julianna Pena after they’ve gone back-and-forth through interviews for the better part of the past year. While Harrison is facing Ketlen Vieira on Saturday, and Pena goes for gold against Raquel Pennington, both fighters rarely escape an interview without being asked about a potential fight between them.

Still, Harrison attempted to maintain her declaration that it doesn’t matter who has the belt after UFC 307 because she’s coming for them.

“Fill in the blank,” Harrison said about her choice of opponents. “It doesn’t matter. It’s only a matter of time. I’m the uncrowned queen. First Saturday night, I smash Ketlen and then I come for my title. Enjoy it while you can ladies.”

Of course, Harrison admitted that she would gladly drive an elbow through Pena’s head for free, which prompted a response from the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion.

“I know violence,” Pena said. “Kayla just got here to the scene. As far as I’m concerned, the last time she faced a Brazilian, she came running into the UFC.”

While Pena wanted to bring up Harrison’s only career loss in a decision to Larissa Pacheco in the PFL, the 34-year-old bantamweight quickly reminded her counterpart that she’s been far more active with a lot less time in the sport.

“I have more finishes than Julianna has wins,” Harrison said. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She better slow down.

“[I] just got here? I won two Olympic gold medals. You started your career in 2009 and you’re 10-5. I started in 2018 and I’m 17-1.”

That number didn’t seem to impress Pena.

“It’s easy to be 17-1 when you’re fighting freaking tomato cans,” Pena said.

Perhaps the more awkward war of words came from Harrison’s interaction with Vieira, who comes into the fight as one of the biggest underdogs on the entire card.

Usually soft spoken, particularly because she’s typically talking through a translator, Vieira got rather animated on Thursday while taking personal shots and low blows at Harrison.

“Listen, it’s going to be really hard looking at your ugly face for me,” Vieira said. “It’s going to be OK when you look in the mirror.”

The comment on her appearance was obviously unexpected but Harrison reminded Vieira “my mom thinks I’m pretty … my kids think I’m pretty, too,” before capping that off by calling her opponent an “asshole.”

Vieira’s frustration towards Harrison stems from the attention the former two-time PFL champion has received since signing with the UFC as a high-profile free agent. In her first appearance with the promotion, Harrison got a spot on the coveted UFC 300 card where she dismantled former champion Holly Holm for a submission win inside two rounds.

Now Harrison is competing in a de facto No. 1 contenders bout while awaiting the chance to face either Pennington or Pena next.

That just didn’t seem right to Vieira, who has been grinding her way through the women’s bantamweight division in the UFC for the past eight years.

“I know you have a great history in judo and I respect that but for you to skip the line, I feel that’s a little too much,” Vieira said. “We work so hard for this. Think about myself, since 2018, first I beat Sara McMann and I thought I have a shot at the title. Then I go out there and beat Cat Zingano, the girl that actually beat Amanda Nunes, I thought I had a shot at the title. Then I beat two former champions and I thought I’m going to have a shot at the title.

“All of a sudden you come out here and you skip the line. Actually I had a loss then and I had a loss to Raquel Pennington, somebody active, the current champion, somebody I admire a lot and someone I mirror myself and my game and the way I behave myself [after]. Because I think coming here and actually being a champion is more than just coming here and saying a lot of bologna.”

For all the talk about her skipping the line or getting something she doesn’t deserve, Harrison reminded everybody on stage that she’s ready for all challenges and invites them to try and shut her up.

“This is the difference between me and all of these girls,” Harrison said. “I come here and they complain ‘she skipped the line, she’s on steroids, it’s not fair, she shouldn’t do this, she shouldn’t do that.’ If this was my division, and I was the champion, I would say come the f*ck over and I’ll show you who’s champion.”

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Don’t ever forget that Kayla Harrison is always watching.

On the latest episode of UFC 307 Embedded, the two-time Olympic champion sent a fiery message to former two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo after he made some critical comments about her before ultimately picking Harrison to win on Saturday. Also on the latest episode, UFC champ Raquel Pennington makes a late arrival into Utah and runs into her opponent Julianna Pena after checking in for fight week duties. All this and more on the latest episode of UFC Embedded.

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At the UFC 307 press conference, all the top stars at UFC’s event Saturday night will take the stage and answer questions from the media.

The entire UFC 307 main card are slated to attend the event, including UFC light heavyweight Alex Pereira and UFC bantamweight champion Raquel Pennington. Khalil Rountree Jr. and former UFC bantamweight champion Julianna Pena will also be there Thursday afternoon in Salt Lake City.

The UFC 307 press conference is expected to begin at 7 p.m. ET.

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The upcoming Bellator Paris card scheduled on Nov. 16 has been cancelled.

PFL officials confirmed the news on Thursday after the Adidas Arena in Paris posted a notification that “due to circumstances beyond our control, the event has been forced to be cancelled.”

PFL issued a separate statement regarding the change to the event.

“Bellator Paris (Nov 16) has been postponed and fighters have been rescheduled for later dates,” PFL officials said. “All previously purchased tickets for Bellator Paris have been refunded. Purchasers will receive a buy one get one ticket purchase opportunity for PFL Europe Championship in Lyon, France on December 14.”

The upcoming Bellator card in Paris was headlined by a bantamweight title fight as reigning champion Patchy Mix was putting his belt up for grabs against Leandro Higo. The card was also supposed to feature the return of Baissangour Chamsoudinov in a fight against Oliver Enkamp.

On the official website, the next Bellator Champions Series card is listed for Tuesday, Dec. 31 but there are no fights listed yet for that event.

It’s unknown if both of those previously scheduled bouts will shift to that card or not.

The most recent Bellator event took place in September in London and that card also featured a late change after the main event between Johnny Eblen and Fabian Edwards was pulled and rescheduled for the upcoming PFL: Battle of the Giants pay-per-view on Oct. 19. Sara Collins ended up submitting Leah McCourt in the new main event for that Bellator card in London.

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The fight between Raquel Pennington and Julianna Peña is for more than just the UFC women’s bantamweight title: it’s a battle for the future of the weight class. At least, so says Peña.

This Saturday, Pennington puts her women’s bantamweight title on the line against Peña in the co-main event of UFC 307. Peña is the brash, outspoken challenger best known for pulling off one of the biggest upsets in UFC history against Amanda Nunes at UFC 269, while Pennington is a divisional workhorse who finally who won the vacant title earlier this year with a win over Mayra Bueno Silva at UFC 297.

They are diametrically opposed personalities in and outside of the cage, and at least for Peña, their differences show why she is the best option to serve as the face of the women’s bantamweight division.

“I believe that I want this opportunity and that this championship belt means more to me than it does to her,” Peña told reporters at UFC 307 media day. “It’s very clear when you match us up, side by side. Raquel has not been a good representation of the women’s bantamweight division. She has not promoted, she has said no to Embedded, she has constantly done everything that she can to avoid being the face of women’s MMA and not being that big face that wants to promote and be that great representation of women’s MMA.

“To me… you’re showing me nothing, but you’re telling me everything by not being that person that is letting everybody know that you’re fighting. I want to be that person. That’s my role and I can do it better, and that’s why I believe I’m going to be able to seal the deal on Saturday night and get that gold again.”

Peña held the bantamweight title from December 2021 until July 2022, where she lost it in her rematch with Nunes at UFC 277. Peña has not competed since then, though she was rumored to be in line to fight Pennington for the vacant belt until she got sidelined by injury.

Meanwhile, Pennington is on a six-fight winning streak over the past four years with wins over multiple top-15 ranked opponents. And for her, actually getting in the cage and fighting is substantially more important for being the face of the division.

“We all know that Julianna has a Master’s Degree in Yapology,” Pennington said in her own media day scrum. “All she does is talk shit. She keeps herself relevant that way. To sit here and say I turned down Embedded, how does she know anything that I’m even doing. It’s interesting. But she just yaps and she talks, but at the end of the day, I’ve always been me. I stay authentic to who I am. I don’t feel the need to go out there and do all the extra shit-talking and whatnot.

“This is 14 years of hard work. I got here just staying in my lane. You want to call me a terrible representation, I didn’t see her doing any better. She had the biggest upset and thens he turned around and got her ass handed to her for five rounds. Where is the representation in that? But I can tell you, for sure, I’m damn sure here to stay. And still.”

UFC 307 takes place this Saturday at Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

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Have we already witnessed Conor McGregor’s final performance in the UFC?

With more than three years passed since his last appearance and no sign when he may compete again, McGregor’s future seems more in question now than ever before. In fact, Matt Brown has long maintained that McGregor was never going to return but his argument was only strengthened after Michael Chandler moved on from a showdown against the Irish superstar after sitting out for nearly two years waiting for the fight to happen.

“It’s clear — he’s not grinding the way a guy getting ready to compete should be grinding,” Brown said about McGregor on The Fighter vs. The Writer. “I’m still on that same thought process of look we’re probably never going to see Conor again. If we do, I would not be blown away, I’ll say I was wrong, whatever. I don’t think we’re seeing him again in the UFC cage.”

Brown believes there are a myriad of reasons why McGregor won’t likely fight again but perhaps the strongest indication actually came back in 2021.

That was the night McGregor suffered a gruesome broken leg in a trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier, which served as his second straight loss in a row. Looking back now, Brown says he saw something change in McGregor that he just can’t get back again.

“When that [fight] happened, it looked to me that Dustin took his soul that day,” Brown said. “I think we all felt that. Maybe we didn’t know it would be as severe as it is. We thought Conor’s a warrior, he’ll be back soon. But when you back and you watch that fight, Dustin took his f*cking soul.

“I thought Nate Diaz might have taken a little bit the first time [he beat Conor] but Conor bounced back from it. Whatever Dustin did to him, I think Dustin actually took his soul, and he no longer had the desire to compete anymore.”

Of course, McGregor would likely disagree considering his constant calls to get booked for fights and complaints that he’s been sidelined far longer than he ever intended after recovering from the injury.

UFC CEO Dana White said he expects McGregor back sometime in early 2025 but he wasn’t willing to contemplate an opponent until the former two-division champion is actually ready to return.

With Chandler out of the running for now — he could obviously still end up as McGregor’s opponent after he competes at UFC 309 — Brown just isn’t sure what options are available.

“If he comes, who does he come back against?” Brown said. “The division has moved on. The Conor of 2016 is not the Conor of today. I can’t think of a single good matchup for him in the top 10. There’s a million lightweights in the world but he’s got to fight a top 10 guy. He’s Conor McGregor. There’s no way he comes back fighting No. 20 or No. 25 or something.

“He has to fight a top 10 guy. Who’s a decent matchup for him in the top 10 to come back [against] after four years?”

While there is no denying McGregor’s status as the biggest draw in the UFC, Brown doesn’t know if his name carries much more weight than that these days.

It’s been eight years since McGregor last held UFC gold and he hasn’t fought for a UFC title in six years.

A win over McGregor certainly results in a big paycheck and a lot of attention but Brown says that’s really the most anybody is getting if he actually comes back.

“The problem now that everybody would have, too, it is just a money fight,” Brown explained. “It’s not going to get you closer to a title beating Conor McGregor, other than bringing your name value up.

“Beating Conor McGregor, you might skip the line a little bit because you just blew your name up a lot but no one’s going to be like ‘you deserve a title fight now that you just beat Conor McGregor.’”

Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeartRadio

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Khalil Rountree isn’t harboring any animosity towards Sean Strickland after he received an apology from the former UFC middleweight champion.

The friction between the fighters dates back to a video Strickland posted on social media where he blasted Rountree for several alleged altercations that happened while they were training together. Strickland even claimed that Rountree called the UFC to complain about him after he made an off-handed remark about his ex-girlfriend.

“If you met him, you would hate him,” Strickland said. “You need to trust me on this, he sucks.”

On Wednesday ahead of his fight at UFC 307, Rountree addressed light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira bringing in Strickland as a training partner to prepare for him. That bit of strategy didn’t bother him, but Rountree revealed that he actually received an apology from Strickland when they ran into each other a few months ago.

“Honestly, the last interaction that I had with Sean Strickland was at the UFC [Performance Institute], it was literally the day after Dan Ige stepped in that fight [on] like three hours, four hours’ notice or something like that,” Rountree said during UFC 307 media day. “I was going into the P.I., I saw Dan Ige, walked right up to him, gave him his props for having balls of steel just going in there on such short notice.

“Out of the blue, Sean Strickland comes up to me. He approached me and just said ‘Khalil, I apologize, I’m a dumb ass, I actually kind of like you. I think you’re a liberal but overall, I like you or respect you.’ Something along those lines.”

The conversation ended with Rountree acknowledging that Strickland was sorry for what he said in the past and he’s not worried much about what might be said in the future.

If anything, Rountree was happy to put the turmoil behind him.

“What I took it as was almost like squashing whatever beef,” Rountree said. “Just saying I am who I am, I’m going to say what I’m going to say, but I’m coming here to personally shake your hand and tell you I think you’re a liberal, but to a certain level, I respect you. It was like that. I took it as you’re coming here to make the peace and I kind of left it at that.

“Now anything moving forward, anything that’s said or whatever, I got that stored in my memory bank. So I know that there’s really no issue. It’s really just talk and I won’t concern myself with it.”

When it comes to his title fight this weekend, Rountree was obviously thankful for the UFC for the opportunity but he hasn’t paid much attention to the reaction afterwards.

There has been some criticism that Rountree didn’t actually do enough to earn a shot at UFC gold, especially with a proven top-five contender like Magomed Ankalaev waiting in the wings.

It turns out none of that bothered Rountree too much because he hasn’t even seen it.

“I didn’t pay attention,” Rountree said. “I’ve got no space, I’ve got no time for other people’s opinions. Look, I’m fighting for the title on Saturday. As soon as I got the news, that was all that I’ve been focused on. If it upsets people, it’s none of my business.

“My business is to do what the UFC calls me to do. Everyone’s going to have opinions even after this. I can’t let it be my concern.”

If there’s one aspect to the fight that Rountree has embraced it’s the potential storyline about him taking out another world class kickboxer to become UFC champion.

He’s already beaten kickboxing legend Gokhan Saki and holds a win over GLORY kickboxing veteran Dustin Jacoby. Now Rountree faces a former GLORY champion in Pereira with a UFC title on the line.

“I think it’s kind of cool,” Rountree said. “It’s definitely a fun way to look at it, especially from a fan standpoint. If they see Alex as the final boss and I get to go and take my shot at the final boss. I think it’s really cool.

“I think it adds excitement. It adds interest and anticipation. So yeah, I’d like to entertain it.”

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Think you can figure out which UFC fighter we’re talking about? You’ll get five clues to figure him out.

We’re back for another day of the SB Nation UFC in-5 daily trivia game, and we’re switching to a system of a new article each day for the game.

We tried using a single article for the game, updated with the latest game each day, but it was creating a bit of an unwieldy experience in the comments. So, we’ll have the current day’s game plus the previous three days in each new article. That way, you can catch up if you miss a day.

Game instructions are at the bottom if you’re new to the game!

What we need from you

1. Play the game
2. Share your result in the comments and on social media
3. Provide feedback (Google Form or in comments below)

Today’s UFC in-5 game

Wednesday’s UFC in-5 game

Tuesday’s UFC in-5 game

Monday’s UFC in-5 game

Saturday’s UFC in-5 game

The goal of the game is to guess the correct random UFC fighter player with the help of up to five clues. We’ll mix in BOTH ACTIVE AND RETIRED FIGHTERS. It won’t be easy to figure it out in one or two guesses, but some of you might be able to nail it. It will be a mix of well-known players and some “that guys” that we haven’t thought of in some time. The game will appear in slot #3 of the MMA Fighting layout each morning, with occasional movement later in the day.

After you correctly guess the player, you can click “Share Results” to share how you did down in the comments and on social media.

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Wes Schultz will get another chance inside the octagon as he returns to Dana White’s Contender Series on Oct. 15 to replace Alain Van De Merckt against Heraldo Souza at middleweight.

Multiple people with knowledge of the chance confirmed the news to MMA Fighting.

Schultz (6-2) first appeared on DWCS on Aug. 13, losing an entertaining match to Mansur Abdul-Malik via second-round stoppage. “Party Time” was riding a three-fight finishing streak going into that bout, all in the opening round.

Souza (9-1-1) claimed the SFT welterweight championship with a 97-second knockout over Andre Fischer this past April, extending his unbeaten streak to six. “Savage” decided to move up to 185 pounds for a shot at a UFC contract through DWCS.

Check the updated Contender Series lineup for Oct. 15 below.

• Wes Schultz vs. Heraldo Souza
• Nick Piccininni vs. Jack Duffy
• Yadier DelValle vs. Antonio Monteiro
• Leslie Hernandez vs. Julieta Martinez
• Mohamed Ado vs. Jonathan Micallef

Mike Heck contributed to this report

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In the third episode of UFC 307 Embedded, Kayla Harrison shows off her striking, Khalil Rountree Jr. goes for a run, Julianna Pena is surprised at the airport, and more.

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