That’s good news for the Alabama native as he approaches his Saturday night co-main event against Marcin Tybura, and not just from a fighting point of view, but a life point of view. It wasn’t easy, considering two 2020 losses and, of course, the tragic death of his daughter Aniah in 2019, but today, he’s better than he’s been in a long time.
“Over the last year and a half, I’ve really battled back and forth with that,” Harris said when asked if he had lost the love of the game that he now says is back in full force. “Just going through what I was going through, struggling in the last couple fights, it was just like, ‘Man, I don’t even know if this is what I want to still do.’ But my daughter, I can hear her telling me, ‘It’s not over. You cannot stop.’ And when I really sat down and looked at it, I didn’t grieve the way I needed to.”
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Harris tried to fill his time with training camps and fights against Alistair Overeem and Alexander Volkov, and he even made a run for a seat on the Homewood City Council in Alabama. But it wasn’t until he looked at the loss of his daughter head-on that he began to find daylight again.