Advertisement

Why Holly Holm isn’t thinking about potential Ronda Rousey rematch

If Holly Holm defeats Germaine de Randamie on Feb. 11 in Brooklyn for the UFC women's featherweight title, she'll become only the fourth fighter in the promotion's history to hold titles in two weight classes. The others are Randy Couture, B.J. Penn and Conor McGregor. (Getty Images)
Holly Holm (above) will face Germaine de Randamie on Feb. 11 for the UFC women’s featherweight title. (Getty)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – It doesn’t take rocket scientist – or even a license in fight promotion – to figure out the direction in which the UFC hopes to head with their star women’s fighters in 2017.

UFC 207 on Dec. 30 will be headlined by Ronda Rousey’s comeback fight, as she meets Amanda Nunes in Las Vegas in an attempt to regain the women’s bantamweight title Rousey lost in her last fight.

Of course, Nunes wasn’t the fighter who defeated Rousey for the belt. That was Holly Holm, who took the title via knockout with the head kick heard around the world at UFC 193 in Australia.

And just as Rousey returns to the scene, so does Holm. She’ll headline UFC 208 in Brooklyn against Germaine de Randamie in a bout that will crown the UFC’s first women’s featherweight champion.

Should Rousey defeat Nunes and Holm defeat de Randamie, the stage would be set for a Rousey-Holm rematch, with the added kick of a champion vs. champion confrontation, the first license-to-print-money megafight of 2017.

For her part, though, Holm isn’t cashing the checks from a Rousey rematch just yet.

“There’s a lot that has to happen,” said Holm, who was in Sacramento to support teammate Michelle Waterson in her UFC on FOX 22 victory over Paige VanZant. “That’s what I tell people when they ask about it and say, ‘Hey, don’t you want to rematch Ronda?’ Well, there’s still a fight that’s taking place Dec. 30 and a fight that’s taking place Feb. 11. Depending on how both of those go, that could be the make or break of everything. Who knows what’s going to happen in three months? Anything can happen in three months.”

First and foremost among the things that can happen, in Holm’s mind, is the way Rousey reacts to her first knockout loss. Holm has been there, in her prior career as a world boxing champion, rebounding to a stunning knockout loss to Anne Sophie Mathis by winning their rematch six months later.

True champions respond to losses in the manner of Holm and Conor McGregor, who won an immediate rematch with Nate Diaz, and then defeated Alvarez to become the first two-weight champion in UFC history. Rousey, for her part, has had 13 months between the Holm loss and the Nunes fight.

Holm says the early moments of Nunes-Rousey, more than a year removed from Rousey’s knockout loss to Holm, will tell the tale.

“I do think that coming back from a big loss, I’ve had some big losses before, and I know that after I’ve been laid out cold from being knocked out, going back, those first punches in a fight are kind of like, am I OK, am I OK,” said Holm. “I think that’s a make-or-break moment, and Ronda’s never been there in a fight before. So I don’t think there’s any way to tell how she’s going to be in those first exchanges until it happens.”

So that’s the first big question going into a potential Holm-Rousey rematch.

Then, there’s the other half of the equation: the credibility of the featherweight belt for which Holm will compete. There’s no dispute who is the world’s best 145 pounder, regardless who wins at UFC 208: That’s Cris “Cyborg” Justino, the current Invicta and former Strikeforce featherweight champion. Justino is 17-1 with 1 no-contest and a proven draw.

But for reasons known only to them, the UFC has made Justino undergo contortions they haven’t demanded of any other star, including getting down to 140 pounds for her last two fights just to compete in the UFC.

Now, after resisting the notion of making a 145-pound belt for quite some time, the UFC decided the belt had to be filled at UFC 208 and couldn’t wait for Justino, who fought three times in seven months, including twice at 140.

Justino declined, leaving the UFC to go ahead and book Holm, coming off losses to Miesha Tate and Valentina Shevchenko, and de Randamie, a fine fighter in her own right but not one who was on the short list for a title shot at bantamweight.

But such is life in the UFC’s WME era. The agency purchased the UFC over the summer for an eye-popping $4.2 billion and needs to make a return on its investment. There are only so many superfights one can create out of thin air, and McGregor, one of the proven few who can carry the load, is taking a chunk of time off at the start of 2017 after fighting four times in 11 months.

So the UFC will do its best to line up a champion vs. champion fight, preferably Rousey vs. Holm, while the fighter everyone knows is best (Cyborg) stays on the sidelines.

For their part, Holm’s camp at Albuquerque’s JacksonWink MMA was surprised to get offered a featherweight title fight. Trainer Mike Winkeljohn recently broke it down for MMAFighting.com, telling UFC president Dana White at first that Holm offered to fight Cyborg at a catchweight before the title fight idea came down.

“Dana came up with a 145-pound title and apparently Dana offered it to Cyborg before we even accepted that it was for a title,” Winkeljohn said. “And I think she turned it down as well. So, that’s all I know about it other than Holly has never turned down a fight in her life. She’s willing to fight, no doubt about it, even out of her weight division.”

Of that, there’s no dispute. Holm’s never been one to back down from accepting a challenge, whether it was jumping from MMA to boxing in the first place, accepting a matchup with Rousey when critics said she wasn’t ready, or defending the belt against Tate when conventional wisdom held that she should wait on Rousey.

People love a gamer and Holm never shies away from a battle. She can’t be blamed for taking an opportunity when it’s given.

Follow Dave Doyle on Twitter and Facebook

Ronda Rousey will fight on Dec. 30 for the first time since getting knocked out by Holly Holm. (Getty)
Ronda Rousey will fight on Dec. 30 for the first time since getting knocked out by Holly Holm. (Getty)