Holly Holm News

Justin Golightly - December 15, 2017

It’s a huge fight. A career-defining bout with big stakes. The title is on the line and Holly Holm is the underdog against one of, if not the best women fighter on the planet. Does this all sound familiar? Back at UFC 193, Holm hit the ‘kick heard ’round the world’ on Rousey and earned the biggest MMA victory of her life in front of a stunned audience. Those comparisons aren’t lost on Coach Mike Winkeljohn either. He recently broke down his thoughts on the fight and predicts Holm stops Cyborg to shock the world once again. “Oh, absolutely [there are comparisons to the fight with Ronda Rousey]. You know what, behind the scenes when we fought Ronda we were pretty confident that we had the proper game plan to beat Ronda. Everybody thought we were crazy, everyone thought Holly was crazy when she first fought Christy Martin back in the early days in boxing cause Christy Martin knocked everyone out, and Holly made that look easy, and she had what I call that ‘Christy Martin’ moment where Christy tried to throw a punch at her, Holly slipped under and then Christy almost went through the ropes. Guess what? Ronda did the same thing, and it’s gonna happen in the Cris Cyborg fight, she’s gonna have that same moment.”

Justin Golightly - December 6, 2017

After many, many months of hype, negotiations and a back-and-forth suspense on if the fight would be on UFC 219, Cris Cyborg will finally defend her women’s UFC featherweight title against Holly Holm. When the division was first created for the dominant Brazilian fighter, it’s the match-up we all thought would be for the belt and now it’s happening. Coach Jason Parillo vows a knockout victory for Cyborg, which may be aided by some “help” that the champ has received from some Brazilian fighters in New Mexico. However, Cyborg claims she didn’t need the advice and honorably refused it. “Many Brazilians are excited about this fight. Both times I fought in Brazil at 63.5kg, the fans wanted me to face Holly [Holm], and since this fight was announced I was surprised by the number of Brazilian fighters who offered me support. Believe it or not, I had some Brazilians who trained in New Mexico who came to share things about their training. Although I thanked them for wanting to see me succeed and continue representing Brazil as champion, I did not let what they said influenced my training. In the end, I do not care what kind of training she’s doing for her confidence, wrestling or boxing. My team is preparing me for the best version of Holly Holm.” 

Tom Taylor - December 6, 2017

Not long ago, UFC President Dana White announced that he and the UFC’s other top decision-makers were floating the idea of promoting boxing matches in the future. This news is likely to have sounded interesting to a number of the UFC’s boxing savvy fighters – particularly upcoming women’s featherweight title challenger Holly Holm, who was a boxing champion long before her UFC career began. While it would be fair to assume this news might interest Holm, however, it apparently doesn’t. Speaking to the media during the festivities for UFC 218 in Detroit, where she was a guest fighter, she assured that her boxing career is over.

Justin Golightly - November 30, 2017

After a long time of negotiations and build-up, we finally have the UFC women’s featherweight title fight that many believed we should have gotten all along. Cris Cyborg will defend her title against Holly Holm in just a month to also contend her status as the best female fighter in the world. Cyborg’s coach thinks Holm’s last fight is telling on how the scrap at UFC 219 will go, but thinks even the best Holly Holm will have no choice but to fall at Cyborg’s hands. “When I watched Holly Holm’s last fight against Bethe Correia or whatever it was, that Bethe girl, Bethe, her level of striking is at the lowest level of the game, the lowest level of the game! And I watched her f-cking batter around for three rounds, Holly trying to get her out of there. Did she finally get her out of there with the head kick? Yes. Should that have happened in the first minute of the first round of the level that both of them are at? Yes. She should have knocked her – look at what Ronda Rousey did to that girl. Ronda Rousey, again, the lowest level of striking in the MMA game, went out and knocked Bethe Correia the f-ck out in the first fucking minute of their god damn fight. And styles make fights, there’s no math on that and I get it, I get it, but Bethe Correia is very ordinary, very ordinary with a low skill-level in striking. Sorry Bethe if you hear this interview, it’s no disrespect to you but it’s just a fact. It is what it is. And I didn’t see the Holly Holm that fought Ronda Rousey out there when she fought Bethe. If there was, she probably would have smoked her a little sooner now wouldn’t she?”

Justin Golightly - November 15, 2017

Ever since her victory over Tonya Evinger at UFC 214 to become the new UFC featherweight champion, Cris Cyborg has been on a warpath to try and defend her title against Holly Holm. There was a whole social media campaign for a fight that seemed like the only option, at least with Invicta FC featherweight champ Megan Anderson’s UFC status still up in the air. The match-up went from being a no-brainer on UFC 219 to dead in the water. Don’t lose hope yet though, Cyborg’s coach Jason Parillo recently just revealed that she will be fighting soon. “Well, I mean I happen to be sitting here with [Cyborg] right now at lunch and her manager. Something is going to be happening. It’s not my job to open my mouth about it, but there’s definitely something exciting in the works, for sure. Cris Cyborg’s a champion. Gun to my head, we’ll see her fight very soon.” — Jason Parillo speaking to the Extra Rounds Podcast.  

Justin Golightly - October 17, 2017

This morning, USADA paid a visit to Cris Cyborg today for her third test in a month. There was no problem, except for Cyborg wants the same testing frequency for her potential opponent Holly Holm, or any opponent for that matter. Does this mean they’re still in negotiations? Either way, Cyborg took to Twitter to make her request known and eventually drew out a shade-filled response from Holly Holm herself. I’ve actually just wasted a minute of my life on this video.

Russell Ess - October 9, 2017

Many are wondering when we will see Cris Cyborg make her way back to the Octagon to defend the UFC women’s featherweight title. Cyborg won the women’s 145-pound belt in July after the promotion stripped the title from the inaugural champion, Germaine de Randamie, after she refused to fight Cyborg who was the number one contender at the time. Cyborg met former Invicta bantamweight champion Tonya Evinger at UFC 214 after de Randamie was stripped of the title where Cyborg was able to stop Evinger in the third round by TKO to win the vacant title.

Justin Golightly - September 14, 2017

While a new UFC women’s featherweight champion is crowned and in waiting, Holly Holm has options in front of her for two titles. She could be eyeing a rematch with Valentina Shevchenko to see who will challenge Amanda Nunes yet again for the bantamweight title, since the rumors are Raquel Pennington will get the next shot. If the a title is the goal, Holm may have a quicker path at featherweight. She’s willing to fight Cris Cyborg to make that happen, the UFC just has to make it worth her while according to Coach Winkeljohn on Submission Radio. “Holly [Holm] will take [the fight with Cyborg] if they make the right offer, if they will do that. I mean, right now we’re looking at, do we fight Amanda Nunes for the title? They really want to give that to Raquel Pennington, I think they’re saying. Holly’s not one to sit on the shelf, she wants the world title. She really wanted to get back at Shevchenko, so I know she was hoping Shevchenko would win the title, but this is where we’re sitting right now and Cris Cyborg is out there and Holly I think wants to knock off another legend. She’ll step up and do it again, so it all comes down to money and what the UFC’s willing to cough up to have Holly fight her.”

Russell Ess - September 1, 2017

There has been a bit of a debate regarding the 10th round TKO stoppage in the Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor money fight. McGregor said after the fight was over that he would have liked it if the ref let the fight go on as he claimed he was more fatigued than hurt.

Tom Taylor - August 28, 2017

Conor McGregor did better against Floyd Mayweather than anyone imagined. In fact, the Irish UFC star even seemed to win the first few rounds. There are, however, skeptics out there who believe McGregor’s early success was simply due to Mayweather’s strategy – a clever ploy to get McGregor’s timing down and simultaneously let him punch himself out. In the opinion of Holly Holm, however, who is a former champion in both the UFC and the boxing ring, this is a ridiculous suggestion. Holm broke it down on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour.

Justin Golightly - August 23, 2017

One thing has been on Cris Cyborg’s mind since finally winning the UFC women’s featherweight title: Holly Holm. Although, she doesn’t have too much choice. There aren’t any other girls in the division now that Germaine de Randamie has been stripped and left back to bantamweight. She’s done everything short of directly demanding a fight with Holm at the end of this year, even promising she will ‘find her’ no matter what. Finally, Holm has gone on record that she is willing to fight Cyborg. …Sort of. “This is me publicly saying, ‘Yes, I am open to the fight at 145 [pounds],'” Holm said. “[But] I’m not going to take a fight at 135 pounds one month, and then the next month it’s, ‘Oh hey, do you want to fight Cyborg at 145?’ This is me going outside of my weight class and that’s OK. I’m willing to take the fight. I just want to have a full training camp. My contract is at 135 pounds. So, if they came with a fight like that [at 145lbs], I would say, ‘Let’s negotiate.’ I truly feel that is one of, if not the biggest, female fights they can promote. I’m not in it for the priority of money, but I value myself. […] This is a huge fight and I’m sure everybody around it, the promotion, is going to make money. So, I would expect more money.”

Justin Golightly - August 15, 2017

After the hard reset of the UFC’s women’s featherweight division, things still don’t seem like there will be smooth sailing moving forward. Technically, there is only one fighter even in the division, that women being the champion Cris Cyborg. Germaine de Randamie gave up her title and ran all the way back to bantamweight, and it seems like Holly Holm did the same. That won’t stop Cyborg from going after Holm to pursue a real, 145lb contender to fight her in a title defense. Cyborg makes a point to MMA Fighting that no matter how much Holm runs, she will find her. “She’s never KOed one girl. Her last punch with Bethe Correia. Three rounds, maybe six punches. They had to stop the fight and say, ‘Hey girls, I don’t know what the plan is but let’s start fighting.’ I don’t think she’s very aggressive. I don’t think she’s going to be really dangerous. I think it would be an exciting fight because I like to fight and I’m going to find her. She’s going to run in the ring, but I’ll find her. She’s already run three times. I was supposed to fight her in Curitiba, I agreed to fight her 140 and she did not want to fight. Then, I said fight in Brazil, and she said she’d fight me at 138, not 140. And after this fight, when Megan Anderson pulled out of the fight, I said I’d like to fight Holly, she said no. […] Three time she run from this fight.”

bjpenndotcom - July 5, 2017

To date, Holly Holm remains the only fighter, male or female, to fine both a boxing world championship, as well as an MMA world championship. Holm was awarded a Guinness World Record for the accomplishment back in 2016 after her defeat of Ronda Rousey to capture the women’s bantamweight title. This of course arguably makes Holm the most qualified person in regards to weighing-in on Conor McGregor making the transition to boxing for his highly anticipated fight with Floyd Mayweather, given that Holm made the transition from Boxing to MMA several years ago, after also having a rather successful professional kickboxing career.

bjpenndotcom - June 17, 2017

Saturday morning, American fight fans tuned into ‘UFC Fight Night: Singapore’ for a very early, but very exciting, morning of fights. In the main event, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm picked up an impressive KO win over Bethe Correia to snap a 3-fight skid going back to March of 2016, when she lost the women’s bantamweight title to Miesha Tate at UFC 196. Following her loss to Tate, Holm dropped a unanimous decision to Valentina Shevchenko in Chicago before then dropping another unanimous decision to Germaine de Randamie in a failed bid for the women’s featherweight title. Now however, back in the win column, Holm will be looking to once again climb the women’s bantamweight rankings once again.

Chris Taylor - June 17, 2017

UFC Singapore Results: Holly Holm vs. Bethe Correia A key women’s bantamweight scrap between former division champion Holly Holm and former title challenger Bethe Correia served as the main event of today’s UFC Fight Night 111 card in Singapore.

bjpenndotcom - June 16, 2017

Saturday night in Singapore, former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm, and women’s bantamweight title challenger Bethe Correia will square off in a highly anticipated bantamweight showdown. Ahead of the fight, the two women actually shared a sauna while attempting to make weight for their highly anticipated showdown Saturday night in a showing of good sportsmanship before a fight:

Tom Taylor - May 2, 2017

In a few short weeks, in the main event of the UFC’s June 17 trip to Singapore, former UFC bantamweight champion Holly Holm will attempt to rebound from a three-fight losing streak when she takes on former title challenger Bethe Correia. In advance of this key bantamweight showdown, Correia has had plenty to say about Holm, most notably telling MMAFighting that she was overrated, and that she planned to knock her out.

bjpenndotcom - April 26, 2017

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm has hit a bit of a rough patch since her iconic UFC 193 knockout win over Ronda Rousey. Following her win over Rousey, Holm stepped into the Octagon with Miesha Tate in the co-main event of UFC 196, where she hoped to make her first successful title defense. Tate played spoiler to Holm’s plans as she picked up a 5th round submission win to claim the UFC title. In her next fight, Holm fought fellow elite level striker Valentina Shevchenko, who handed Holm a decision loss. Most recently, Holm stepped into the Octagon with Germaine De Randamie at UFC 208 to compete for the inaugural women’s featherweight title. Ultimately, despite some controversial blows from De Randamie, the Dutch striker was awarded the unanimous decision, and the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight title, handing Holm her third straight loss.