“Now there’s pressure that I don’t want to be this one-hit wonder. I want to be able to show another performance. And in a lot of ways, this is a tougher fight for me. A different fight, just tougher in different areas, obviously… She’s gritty. That makes it hard to make a clean fight. It’s hard to control that type of a fight. Her strength is her grittiness, for sure… She’s down for the grind, for sure. If you land a good shot, you don’t want to assume that’s going to be the end of the fight. You need to stay focused. She waits for the mistake. She’s in there. She’s in there physically and mentally to keep up with the grind. They can even make the fight look messy.”
-Holly Holm talks to Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour about the pressure to follow up on her win over Ronda Rousey, and why Miesha Tate represents a potentially more difficult fight at UFC 196.
Penick’s Analysis: The stylistic differences certainly make this a very different fight from the Rousey bout. Where Rousey represented one of the more singularly vicious and to that point unstoppable submission games in this field, she’d never been really tested on the feet by someone who could keep it there. Tate doesn’t have the same fight finishing ability, but she’s a very tough, durable fighter who has taken damage and continued to come forward throughout her career. She’s also got strong wrestling, decent submissions of her own, and an improved striking game that makes her at least somewhat dangerous on the feet. Holm’s takedown defense was sound against Rousey, and she’s got a much more devastating striking game than Tate, but she has to be on point throughout the bout and not allow Tate to grind her out. This should be a more competitive fight than we saw for Rousey in November, provided Tate can avoid getting hurt badly in the first exchange, as did happen to the now former champion.
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