Holm has eye on another upset
Fighter set to face Cyborg but has struggled since big win against Rousey
After Holly Holm blasted away the notion that Ronda Rousey was unbeatable with a brutal head kick in late 2015, life was nice and chill for a while. Well, for about 24 hours.
After perhaps the biggest upset in Ultimate Fighting Championship history, Holm went out into the city of Melbourne, Australia, for beer and french fries with her family, friends and training team. The following day, they took a road trip along part of Australia’s sweeping southern coastline to see the Twelve Apostles, a dramatic set of natural limestone structures that jut out of the ocean.
After that, things got crazy.
“It was a whirlwind,” Holm said. “There is really no way to prepare yourself for it.”
With Rousey deposed as the queen of mixed martial arts and off into self-imposed hiding — she hasn’t spoken to the mass media since — Holm, as the new bantamweight champion, was in high demand.
Suddenly, the former boxer and daughter of an Albuquerque preacher was being lauded on red carpets and chat show couches, hanging with Michael Strahan and Kelly Ripa, mingling with celebs and doing the late-night rounds.
Yet the limelight did not sit as neatly on Holm’s shoulders as it did for Rousey. Happiest at home with her husband, Jeff Kirkpatrick, or in the famed Jackson Wink gym that churns out elite fighters, the sparkly nature of Hollywood wasn’t her comfort zone, a point rammed home when she was introduced to Jay-Z and asked his wife what her name was. (Answer: Beyonce.)
Fast-forward two years, and life is very different. Holm is roughly back to where she was before the Rousey clash — going into a big headlining fight against an established and seemingly unbeatable star as a massive underdog.
She will challenge Cris “Cyborg” Justino for the featherweight belt at UFC 219 on Saturday, and few give her much of a chance. After beating Rousey, Holm refused to wait for a rematch and promptly plummeted to three consecutive defeats, losing her title to Miesha Tate, being outpointed by Valentina Shevchenko and putting in a tame performance against Germanie de Randamie after moving up in weight.
Arresting the skid by knocking out Bethe Correia in June convinced few that she is ready to beat Cyborg, who has won 18 fights in a row since her pro debut in 2005 and is ranked 10th on the organization’s pound-for-pound list.
Having no one think she can win is just fine with Holm.
“It’s a feeling you can’t explain, but it’s also what makes the victory that much better,” Holm said. “You really have to look at all of it and say that you know better than what all of these people are thinking.
“(Against Rousey) I knew I was capable, but to perform it is an entirely different thing, so walking to the octagon was very heavy, very nerve-racking. There’s never been a feeling like that. It’s such an intense feeling, it’s close to being unbearable.
“It’s the most vulnerable place and the most lonely place to be. They lock the octagon up and it’s just you and this person. Millions of witnesses, and you’re totally exposed. And what you do is either going to be laughed at by millions, mocked by millions or praised by millions. You don’t know. But it’s all worth it when you get your hand raised.”
There isn’t much call for Holm on the mainstream red carpet these days, which is an indicator of how quickly things can change in the unpredictable world of the UFC. When she beat Rousey, Conor McGregor had yet to be catapulted to stardom, the UFC was still owned by Dana White and the Fertitta brothers and only one of the UFC’s thenchampions (Demetrious Johnson) would hold their belt uninterrupted until now.
“It has been a (wild) ride, from the highest high to three losses in a row,” Holm said.
“It’s pretty rare — in fact I don’t know anybody it’s happened to. But I wanted to keep fighting because I was passionate about it. That’s why I got to the title in the first place. A lot of people wanted me to wait for Ronda, but I didn’t want my whole career to be based around one fighter.”