Predictions

Harrison vs. Nunes Prediction, UFC 334: Our Pick, the Numbers and the Layoff

Harrison has spent 59% of her UFC fight time in control. Nunes has eight UFC knockdowns and has not fought since June 2023. How each of them wins, and who we pick.

By Jashan Nov 8, 2026 · 9 min read

At a glance

The fightUFC 334, Saturday, November 14, 2026: Harrison defends the UFC women's bantamweight title in the co-main event
The recordsHarrison 3-0 in the UFC, 19-1 overall; Nunes 16-2 in the UFC with 7 KO/TKO wins, 23-5 overall
The oddsHarrison -192, Nunes +160 on UFC.com (Nov 8); -190 and +161 at BetOnline via Sherdog (Oct 29)
The layoffNunes last fought on June 10, 2023, 1,253 days before UFC 334; Harrison on June 7, 2025, with neck surgery since
The numbersHarrison: 59% of her UFC time in control, never taken down. Nunes: 8 knockdowns, 81% takedown defense
Our pickHarrison by submission, round 3 (our opinion)

What's at stake

Kayla Harrison defends the UFC women's bantamweight title against Amanda Nunes at UFC 334 on Saturday, November 14, 2026. UFC.com's event page lists it as a "Women's Bantamweight Title Bout" and as the co-main event behind Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit; Wikipedia's page for the event has the same order and calls Harrison the reigning champion and Nunes the former two-time champion. It is Harrison's first defense. She took the title by submitting Julianna Pena at UFC 316 on June 7, 2025, as theScore and the official record show, and mma.social's page lists her as the reigning champion with no defenses yet.

Harrison came to the UFC from judo. She won Olympic gold in judo in 2012 and 2016 and the PFL's lightweight tournament in 2019 and 2021, as UFC.com's athlete page and Wikipedia both record. She is 19-1 as a professional, by UFC.com and theScore. The one loss was a unanimous decision to Larissa Pacheco on November 25, 2022, a fighter she had beaten twice in 2019, as theScore and Sports Illustrated both report.

Nunes is 16-2 in the UFC, as the official record, mma.social and MMA Junkie show, and 23-5 overall, by theScore, MMA Junkie and UFC.com. She won the bantamweight title twice, and in December 2018 she became the first woman to hold two UFC titles at once, which theScore and UFC.com both record. She retired after beating Irene Aldana on June 10, 2023, and was named to the UFC Hall of Fame's class of 2025, according to CBS Sports and Bleacher Report. The two are former teammates, both outlets note. When Harrison won the title she called Nunes into the cage. "This is the greatest fighter of all time," Harrison said, in the words CBS Sports and theScore both print.

They also share two opponents. Nunes knocked out Holly Holm with a head kick in the first round in 2019; Harrison submitted Holm in the second round of her UFC debut. Nunes is 1-1 against Pena; Harrison beat Pena for the title.

The fight was first booked for UFC 324 in January 2026. Harrison withdrew with a neck injury and had surgery, as theScore and Cageside Press both reported; theScore and Wikipedia say the surgery repaired herniated discs. The betting favors Harrison. UFC.com listed her at -192 and Nunes at +160 on November 8, and BetOnline's line on October 29, reported by Sherdog and carried by Yahoo Sports, was -190 and +161.

Tale of the tape

The official numbers over each fighter's UFC career, Harrison first in every cell. Harrison's sample is three fights and 31 minutes 42 seconds, so treat her rates as early readings. Nunes's is 18 fights and 3 hours 24 minutes. For Harrison, the last three fights are her whole UFC career; for Nunes they are the first Pena fight, the Pena rematch and Aldana.

Harrison - Nunes	UFC career	Last three fights
Minutes fought	31.7 - 204.4	31.7 - 58.4
Sig. strikes landed per minute	4.29 - 4.54	4.29 - 4.67
Sig. strikes absorbed per minute	1.10 - 2.44	1.10 - 3.08
Sig. strike accuracy (%)	62 - 52	62 - 53
Takedowns per 15 minutes	2.84 - 2.79	2.84 - 3.34
Takedown defense (%)	100 - 81	stopped 2 of 2 - stopped 0 of 1
Control per fight (seconds)	377 - 233	377 - 448
Knockdowns scored	0 - 8	0 - 3
Submission attempts	2 - 10	2 - 1

How we computed them: we added up the official round-by-round numbers in the ufcstats mirror for each fighter's UFC fights, counting each fight once, and divided by the fight time in the results file (the completed rounds plus the time of the last one). "Absorbed" is what the opponent landed; takedown defense is the share of the opponents' takedown attempts that failed; control per fight is the fighter's own control time divided by fights. The figures match mma.social's fighter pages, and Harrison's match UFC.com's athlete page (4.29, 1.10, 2.84 and 100%). UFC.com's page for Nunes shows 4.55, 2.62, 2.73 and 82%, from a count of 975 of 1,881 significant strikes that is larger than the 928 of 1,784 in her 18 UFC fights in the official statistics, so we use the 18-fight figures. UFC.com also lists Harrison's takedowns as 2 of 16; the round-by-round numbers have 6 of 16, which we use.

The landing rates look close until you see where the strikes land. Harrison lands on top: 72 of her 136 significant strikes came on the ground. Nunes lands at range: 639 of her 928 came at distance. Harrison has outlanded her opponents by 3.19 significant strikes a minute, Nunes by 2.10. Neither has been knocked down in the UFC. Harrison has never been taken down there, and her three opponents controlled her for 15 seconds in all. Nunes's last-three absorbed rate is pulled up by one round: in the second round of the first Pena fight, Pena landed 74 significant strikes to Nunes's 36.

How Harrison wins

Get through the first round

Nunes has nine first-round finishes in the UFC, as the official record and mma.social both show, and the first five minutes are her best chance. Harrison's defense has held so far: she absorbs 1.10 significant strikes a minute, and Holm landed two in 6 minutes 47 seconds against her.

Clinch, then take her down

Harrison is not an efficient shooter. She has landed 6 of 16 takedown attempts. Against Holm she landed one of three in the first round and finished the round with 46 significant strikes, 41 of them on the ground. Nunes's opponents have landed only 6 of 32 takedowns on her. But the fighters who did get her down beat her: Cat Zingano landed 3 of 3 in 2014 and Pena 1 of 1 in 2021, in Nunes's two UFC losses.

Stay on top

Harrison has controlled her opponents for 1,130 of the 1,902 seconds she has fought in the UFC, 59%. Both finishes came out of that control: a rear-naked choke of Holm at 1:47 of the second round and a kimura of Pena at 4:55 of the second, as the official record, CBS Sports and theScore show.

Take over after the first round

In both of her UFC losses, Nunes had the better of the first round on the official numbers. Against Zingano she outlanded her 21 to 3 with 3:08 of control in round 1; Zingano then controlled her for 4:28 of round 2 and stopped her in round 3. Against Pena she led 10 to 5 with 3:35 of control in round 1; Pena outlanded her 74 to 36 in round 2 and choked her. A five-round title fight gives Harrison 20 minutes after the first.

How Nunes wins

Land first

Nunes has seven KO/TKO wins and eight knockdowns in the UFC, and she finished Ronda Rousey in 48 seconds and Cris Cyborg in 51, as the official record shows. Harrison's three UFC opponents landed 35 significant strikes on her in all; Nunes landed 27 on Rousey in 48 seconds. To get her takedowns, Harrison has to walk into range, and Nunes's head kick ended Holm's night in the first round.

Stop the takedowns

Felicia Spencer tried seven takedowns on Nunes and landed none; Miesha Tate tried five and landed none. The one opponent who stopped most of Harrison's attempts also gave her the hardest night. Ketlen Vieira stopped six of eight, and the fight went the full 15 minutes, as theScore and the official record show. Vieira landed 24 significant strikes, more than Harrison's other two UFC opponents combined, and caught her with an elbow in the second round: CBS Sports describes a cut above the right eye, theScore a large lump on the forehead. Harrison said afterwards it was the first time she had bled in a cage, both outlets report.

Make it a long night

Harrison has never fought past round 3 in the UFC; her one five-round fight, against Pena, ended in round 2. She spent most of her PFL career at lightweight, and UFC 300 was her 135-pound debut, as CBS Sports and MMA Junkie both report. Nunes has been to the fifth round six times in the UFC, and her last fight was a 50-44, 50-44, 50-43 decision over Aldana, as theScore and MMA Junkie report, with 142 significant strikes landed to 41 and 4:36 of control in round 5.

The layoff question

Nunes last fought on June 10, 2023. UFC 334 comes 1,253 days later, about three years and five months. Her longest gap between UFC fights before this was 325 days, from November 2013 to September 2014, by the fight dates in Wikipedia's record and on mma.social's page. This one is almost four times as long.

The sources describe the retirement a little differently. theScore says she announced it in her post-fight interview, cited her mother and left at 23-5. MMA Junkie says she left both gloves and both belts in the cage and cited her mother and her family. Bleacher Report says she vacated the bantamweight and featherweight titles. All three agree she retired on the night of the Aldana win.

They also tell the return in different ways. CBS Sports dates it to an interview on June 5, 2025, two days before UFC 316, with Nunes saying she wanted the winner of Harrison vs. Pena. Bleacher Report credits the news to ESPN's Brett Okamoto, says she was coming back "after nearly two years", and has her telling fans she missed fighting. Wikipedia also dates the announcement to June 5, 2025. Bleacher Report's piece gives her UFC record as 23-5, which is her overall record; the official record has 16-2 in the UFC, which we use.

What the record can tell you is limited. It has nothing on Nunes since June 2023, and her own history gives no pattern: after her four longest gaps she lost to Zingano, shut out Aldana, lost to Pena and submitted Megan Anderson in the first round. Harrison is not coming in fresh either. By fight night she will have been out for 525 days, with neck surgery in that time; her longest gap in the UFC before this was 245 days. Harrison is 36, by UFC.com and mma.social. Nunes is 38 by the birth date in Wikipedia and on mma.social's page; UFC.com's athlete page still says 37. How either of them has trained in the meantime is not in any record, so we do not guess.

Our pick

This is our opinion, not a forecast from the numbers alone: Harrison by submission in round 3.

The fight turns on whether Nunes can keep it standing. We expect her best moments to come early, because that is where her record says they come. After that, we expect Harrison's judo and top pressure to tell. She has controlled her opponents for 59% of her UFC minutes, they have controlled her for 15 seconds, and both of Nunes's UFC losses came after she had the better of the first round. Both of Harrison's UFC finishes came out of long spells of control in round 2; against a fighter as durable as Nunes, who has never been knocked down in the UFC, we think it takes a round longer.

The strongest case against our pick is Nunes's power against Harrison's entries. Harrison lands fewer than four in ten of her takedown attempts, and every failed shot is a chance for the fighter with eight UFC knockdowns. Vieira showed that a fighter who stops takedowns can make Harrison's night hard, and Harrison has her own long layoff and a neck operation to come back from. The market agrees there is a real chance: +160 makes Nunes about a 38% chance before the bookmaker's margin. If Nunes lands first, as she did against Rousey, Cyborg and Holm, the layoff will not matter.

The fight page: Harrison vs. Nunes. The whole card: UFC 334. Nunes's most famous night: Nunes vs. Rousey at UFC 207. More: the most title fights in UFC history.

Sources

Questions

Who will win Harrison vs. Nunes?

Our pick is Kayla Harrison by submission in round 3. It is our opinion, based mainly on Harrison's top control: she has spent 59% of her UFC fight time controlling her opponents, and Nunes has not fought since June 2023. The case for Nunes is her power: seven KO/TKO wins and eight knockdowns in the UFC.

When is Harrison vs. Nunes?

Saturday, November 14, 2026, at UFC 334. It is the co-main event, behind Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit, and it is for Harrison's UFC women's bantamweight title.

What are the odds for Harrison vs. Nunes?

UFC.com listed Harrison at -192 and Nunes at +160 on November 8, 2026. BetOnline's line on October 29, as reported by Sherdog, was Harrison -190 and Nunes +161.

When did Amanda Nunes last fight?

On June 10, 2023, when she beat Irene Aldana by unanimous decision at UFC 289 (50-44, 50-44, 50-43) and retired after the fight. UFC 334 comes 1,253 days later, almost four times her previous longest gap between UFC fights.

Why was Harrison vs. Nunes postponed?

The fight was first booked for UFC 324 in January 2026. Harrison withdrew with a neck injury and had surgery; theScore and Wikipedia say it repaired herniated discs. It was rebooked for UFC 334.

What is Kayla Harrison's UFC record?

3-0: a rear-naked choke of Holly Holm at UFC 300, a unanimous decision over Ketlen Vieira at UFC 307 and a kimura of Julianna Pena for the title at UFC 316. She is 19-1 as a professional; her only loss was a decision to Larissa Pacheco in the PFL in 2022.