Photos taken several years ago of Professional Fighters League champion Kayla Harrison and UFC contender Anthony Rocco Martin showed a happy couple.
Arm-in-arm with MMA coach Mike Brown. Smiling after Martin’s UFC win in Kansas. Posing with Martin’s daughter from another relationship. “Happy Valentine’s Day to my two beautiful ladies,” Martin wrote in a caption. “I’m a lucky man.”
If anyone deserves a healthy romance, it is 33-year-old Harrison. Sexually abused by a coach in her early teens, the two-time Olympic gold medalist in judo responded like a champ, penning a book called Fighting Back and creating a foundation for survivors of sexual abuse.
But police records and court filings obtained by Kneebar News suggest a darker side to the relationship between Martin and Harrison, who is poised to make her promotional debut at UFC 300 on April 13.
- In September 2021, Harrison successfully obtained a restraining order against Martin in Broward County (Fla.) after lodging allegations of domestic violence. Details of the confidential court filings are unknown. But the restraining order was extended twice before Harrison voluntarily dismissed it in March 2022.
- In December 2022, Lee County (Fla.) deputies responded to a report of a “verbal disturbance” at an airbnb Martin had rented. Officers returned later that night to find Harrison crying inside a black Ford Expedition, saying she “just wanted to leave.” Moments later, Martin emerged from the home purportedly drunk and taunted and threatened the deputies. He was arrested and charged with simple assault on an officer. Martin pleaded ‘not guilty,’ and prosecutors dropped the charge seven months later.
- In February 2023, Harrison filed another confidential domestic-violence complaint against Martin in Broward County. She met the same day with a sheriff’s deputy at the Statewide Prosecutors office in Fort Lauderdale. According to a Broward spokesperson, the investigation currently is “pending inactive awaiting follow-up information from the victim.”
Neither Harrison nor Martin spoke publicly about problems in their relationship, which is believed to have ended. To the contrary, in fact. Five days after filing her 2021 domestic-violence complaint in Broward County, for example, Harrison petitioned the court to seal the case. She was unsuccessful.
One hint of trouble did slip through the silence. In January 2023, roughly two weeks after he was arrested outside his Bonita Springs airbnb, Martin penned several menacing tweets. “Just a quick leak before I finish writing everything up and releasing it,” read one excerpt. “Kayla won’t look so pretty in the world when the truth is out.” Martin subsequently deleted the account.
Now 34, Martin last fought in the UFC in June 2020. He told a judge in early 2023 that he operated a construction business called Building With Integrity, in Minnesota.
Harrison, who has amassed a 16-1 record in mixed martial arts since her pro debut in June 2018, will face former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm at UFC 300 on April 13.
On March 21, Kneebar News sought comment from Harrison and Martin at email addresses believed to be theirs. Neither has responded, but we will add any replies here as they arrive.
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