Kayla Harrison vs Amanda Nunes Prediction, Odds, Best Bets - UFC 334

The greatest women's fighter ever comes out of retirement after more than three years away, straight into a title fight with the champion she used to train beside. Kayla Harrison's first defense is the fight both women have been circling for years.

The Matchup

Kayla Harrison's UFC career is three fights old and already has a belt in it. She submitted Holly Holm in her debut, beat Ketlen Vieira on the cards, and took the bantamweight title from Julianna Pena in June 2025, submitting her in the second round. Her game is judo translated to the cage: she averages 2.84 takedowns per fifteen minutes, she spends her fights on top, 53 percent of her significant strikes land on the ground, and eight of her nineteen wins are submissions.

Nobody has taken her down in the UFC. She has also not fought since the night she won the title. This defense was first booked for January, and Harrison's neck surgery pushed it to November, so she returns after 525 days away with the hardest test of her career waiting for her.

Amanda Nunes is the reason this is a superfight and not a coronation. She is 23-5, a two-division champion and a Hall of Famer, with thirteen knockouts and fourteen first-round finishes. She beat Cris Cyborg, Ronda Rousey, Holly Holm and Valentina Shevchenko.

Her last five fights brought four wins, decisions over Irene Aldana, Julianna Pena and Felicia Spencer and a first-round submission of Megan Anderson, against one loss, submitted by Pena in their first meeting. Then she walked away. Nunes retired in June 2023 after the Aldana win, vacated the belt, and has not fought in more than three years. The two women know each other well: they were teammates at American Top Team before Nunes left to build her own camp.

Key Factors

The fight is decided by whether Nunes can still defend the first takedown in the fourth round the way she did in her prime. Across her career she has defended 82 percent of takedowns and averaged 2.73 takedowns per fifteen minutes herself, so the clinch is not foreign ground to her. But Harrison does not shoot from range the way the wrestlers Nunes used to stuff.

She throws from the clinch, lands on top, and starts every exchange after that already ahead. Ring rust lives in exactly those reactive moments, the sprawl that arrives a half-second late, the get-up that used to be automatic. Nunes has gone 1,253 days without any of it being tested.

The case for Nunes is her right hand and her history of ruining careful plans. She lands 4.55 significant strikes a minute with power that ended fights against strikers and grapplers alike, and Harrison's striking defense has never been examined by anyone who hits like this.

Harrison is also coming back from neck surgery and a long layoff of her own, and if her entries are even slightly slower, Nunes is the worst possible opponent to learn that against. Championship distance is familiar ground for Nunes: three of her last five fights went the full twenty-five minutes. Harrison, for all her dominance, has never gone past the third round in the UFC.

Every pick is published with its line before the game. Odds via consensus sportsbooks at time of writing and move constantly. Must be 21+. If gambling is a problem, call or text 1-800-GAMBLER.