If you are looking for any sort of competition for stand out UFC female bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey, you are clearly going to have to look beyond the UFC roster to get it. Enter former world champion boxer Holly Holm, who in 2013 left boxing to concentrate on MMA full time. Holm has run her MMA record to a perfect 7-0, and she left boxing with an overall record of 33-2-3 so she is an experienced athlete who will eventually leave the Legacy Fighting Championships promotion she is fighting in now and head over to the UFC.
In boxing, she has held major titles as a lightwelterweight, Welterweight and Light Middlweight. After reigning as champion since 2007, she lost to Anne Sophie Mathis in December 0f 2011, but she avenged the loss six months later. Her other loss was due to a cut earlier in her career.
Holm has been immersing herself in MMA in a measured fashion, going undefeated and earning 6 stoppages due to strikes in those seven outings. She did not have a huge KO percentage in boxing, something like 25 percent, but she has incorporated knees and kicks to her arsenal and upped that considerably in MMA.
Holm has a team and she appears to be well advised. She has sought matches and ring time in MMA and been willing to pay her dues all the while having her eyes firmly set on the UFC belt around Ronda Rousey’s waist.
Holm is an exceptional athlete, and in a match with Rousey she is going to have to keep it standing to get her strikes off. Rousey, with her years in judo, is unlikley to fool around standing long, and she has gotten fights to the ground at will. Even pressured, in a clinch up against the fence, Holm’s strking will be curtailed and you immediately head into Rousey territory in the fight.
Look for Holm to head towards the UFC here in 2014 and 2015, and possibly to face Rousey by the end of the year if she accepts the UFC’s fasttrack approach and feels she is ready. Regardless of her boxing pedigree and the intelligent approach to the crossover to MMA, Holm is entering Rousey’s world. It would be a different story if Rousey was delving into boxing….
I take it you meant to say, “Look for Holm to head towards the UFC here in 2014 (or 2015?), not 2013.
In the interest of full disclosure, it should have been mentioned that Holms’ level of competition in MMA is far inferior to that of any of the girls in the top 10 of the UFC.
Yes, you are correct, apologies for being sloppy. Too many proverbial headshots….. Thanks for the heads up.
Rousey should fight Cyborg, Cristiane Santos, but Dana wants to keep his champion around as it means $$$$$. I think this is the only real challenge to the belt.
I absolutely agree, I dont think Gina Carano is nearly as likely to be a challenge. The UFC has done a terrible job actually growing the women’s divisions and there is no real answer besides Cyborg.