Kayla Harrison and Amanda Nunes never truly were buddies.
Work friends: That’s a more apt description.
“One hundred percent,” Harrison agreed when The Post asked whether the label fit the nature of her relationship with Nunes, whom she will defend the women’s bantamweight title against Saturday night at Madison Square Garden at UFC 334.
The two sides of what UFC CEO Dana White has called the greatest women’s fight of all time aren’t enemies, but the work-friend thing is gone, Harrison assured.
The signal flare was lit for this epic clash of champion Harrison — the only American woman to win two Olympic gold medals in judo — and challenger Nunes — the Class of 2025 UFC Hall of Famer returning to action after three years away, having vacated two championship belts upon her initial retirement — 17 months ago at Prudential Center.
Harrison, who’d just completed her long journey to UFC gold by smashing Julianna Peña to steal her gold, welcomed her former American Top Team training partner into the Octagon for a promotional moment rooted in respect and elevating women’s MMA. It was the other end of the spectrum from the awkwardly ugly promotional approach of Josh Hokit, the heavyweight title challenger facing champ Ciryl Gane in Saturday’s main event.
Fast forward to fight week, and the chill in the New York air has made their in-person interactions feel frostier.
“In the past, our faceoffs have been a little more friendly or [included] hugs. This ain’t that. It’s fight week. It’s here,” Harrison says. “We’re not friends. It’s not personal. For me, it’s not personal. It’s just business, and I’m going to go out there, and I’m going to prove why I’m the best.”
For Nunes, the victor in one of the other handful of epic clashes of women’s legends when she ended the great Cris Cyborg’s unbeaten run at featherweight eight years ago, the feeling is mutual.
Her return to the cage, healthier after battling knee issues for years leading up to her 2023 retirement while still holding bantamweight and featherweight gold, coincides with Harrison’s rise. It’s not necessarily a grudge match, though.
“I don’t hate Kayla,” Nunes told The Post, echoing that the two were never the closest pals during their ATT days. “… This is all about the challenge. We are two competitive athletes, and we want to fight. We want to put this in the UFC Octagon. The [best] part of this: Everybody wins.”
It’s a win for women’s MMA after one of the quietest years since the UFC embraced Ronda Rousey’s star power in 2013, eventually adding up to four weight classes before paring down to three with featherweight fading away.
The strawweight title was defended once by Mackenzie Dern in an August co-main event that mostly came and went. Natalia Silva won the title vacated by injured legend Valentina Shevchenko atop a maligned October numbered event.
Saturday’s clash dwarfs those two title bouts by magnitudes in terms of fanfare, with frequent bemoaning that a fight the promoter hails as an all-time clash is situated as the co-headliner to a heavyweight clash lacking backstory in which to invest.
It was meant to go off in January — again, in the co-main slot — before Harrison required neck surgery that scuttled the original plan.
It was a long time coming, but the operation’s timing couldn’t be helped, Harrison explained.
“Every single camp, I would have a flare-up, and I would be on muscle relaxers, on pain pills, on whatever, and then by the end, it got to the point where there was going to be permanent nerve damage,” Harrison said. “That’s why I had to have the surgery. It was just like, my nerves were completely blocked off, and I was having lightning bolts down my arm. I think I slept like maybe two hours the last five days before the surgery just because I would fall asleep and the lightning bolt would wake me up, and it was brutal.”
Now with her neck 100 percent better, and expressing some regret of not going through with surgery sooner to fix a problem that plagued her for years, Harrison defends her title for the first time at the Garden. It’s technically her fourth time fighting right by Penn Station, though the first three under the PFL banner were in the Theater at MSG rather than The Mecca itself.
This one is different, and she’s aware of that more than most.
“Not the same!” she playfully asserted. “I can’t tell you how excited I am for that. I’m definitely the type of fighter who I feel thrives under the bright lights and shines, and I know that this historic venue with this New York City electric crowd is going to be amazing.”
