{"id":414893,"date":"2026-01-15T15:22:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414893\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T15:22:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T15:22:08","slug":"kayla-harrison-confirms-emergency-neck-surgery-forced-ufc-324-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/414893\/","title":{"rendered":"Kayla Harrison Confirms Emergency Neck Surgery Forced UFC 324 Withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/tag\/kayla-harrison\" class=\"tag-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kayla Harrison<\/a> has revealed that emergency neck surgery forced her withdrawal from UFC 324, postponing her highly anticipated bantamweight title defense against Amanda Nunes.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time Olympic judo gold medalist shared an emotional video from her hospital bed in New York City, appearing in a neck brace following surgery to repair herniated discs. Harrison called the situation &#8220;a tough one,&#8221; confirming she is now on &#8220;day one&#8221; of her recovery and comeback.<\/p>\n<p>Fighting back tears, Harrison repeatedly apologized to Nunes, the UFC, and fans for the late withdrawal from the January 24 event.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll be back soon,&#8221; Harrison promised.<\/p>\n<p>The champion also spoke about her faith during the difficult moment, saying she wants to honor God &#8220;in the good and the bad&#8221; and hopes her story can be used &#8220;in a powerful way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Harrison thanked her surgeon Dr. Kim, UFC medical staff, her coaches and teammates at American Top Team, and her mother for caring for her children during her recovery.<\/p>\n<p>The UFC has not announced a new date for Harrison vs. Nunes, though the superfight between the reigning champion and the promotion&#8217;s most decorated women&#8217;s fighter is expected to be rescheduled once Harrison completes her rehabilitation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kayla Harrison has revealed that emergency neck surgery forced her withdrawal from UFC 324, postponing her highly anticipated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,35956,785,85,219104],"class_list":["post-414893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-kayla-harrison","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-234"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}