Earlier this week, Holly Holm’s coach Mike Winklejohn said he thought Holm “broke” Ronda Rousey in their fight, and Holm gave her thoughts on that yesterday during a UFC 208 media call.
Asked about whether there was any truth to what Winklejohn said, Holm isn’t sure she agrees and instead thinks it stirred doubt in Rousey’s mind. “Here’s what I think about that, and a lot of people have asked me about that ever since she had that fight with Nunes,” Holm said. “Coming off of a knockout, [whether it’s] Ronda or anybody else — I’m not saying it’s just her, it’s just fighters — you come off of a knockout it is very, very hard mentally and emotionally. You second-guess yourself. I remember when I got knocked out, every time I would spar for the first two weeks, every time I would get hit, I would be like, am I okay? Yeah, I think I’m okay. Am I okay? Yeah, I think I’m okay. You really second guess yourself a lot.”
Holm also said that she had a lot of people ask her about Rousey’s chances of defeating Nunes prior to their bout, and admitted that the fight may have gone differently if Rousey fought Nunes before fighting Holm. “I knew that, going into that [Nunes] fight, everybody was asking me if I thought Ronda was going to win or not, and I said, you know what, I don’t know if she’s going to win,” she said. “It’s really hard to tell your mind differently. Your mind is very powerful, and I think that that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t already knock her out before, because her mind had been there. If she and Nunes fought before Ronda and I fought, I do feel like that fight would have gone longer than it did. I really do. And I don’t think anybody would argue with me on that.”
Holm will challenge Germaine de Randamie for the inaugural women’s Featherweight title next Saturday.
Cervantes Analysis: There’s no doubt that brutal loss to Holm changed Rousey, and I’m inclined to agree with Winklejohn on this one. In the buildup to the fight with Nunes she was unusually quiet, refused to attend media events, and still has yet to formally comment on whether or not she’ll continue to fight. At this point, I’m not sure we ever see her in the UFC again, but she truly has nothing left to prove as she is an Olympic medalist, the first women’s champion in the UFC, and holds the record for most defenses in the division. Even in spite of the controversy and the losses, no one can say they did more for women’s MMA than Ronda Rousey.
SATURDAY NEWS DIGEST…
-Dana White told USA Today that he has been struggling to book the Diaz brothers for fights, as they continue to turn down offers.
-Though nothing has been confirmed, multiple sources are reporting that Ryan Bader is currently in talks with Bellator.
-Angela Hill told Ariel Helwani that Joanna Jedrzejczyk would be an easier fight than Jessica Andrade.
-Dana White called Anderson Silva “the Tom Brady of UFC.” He said on TMZ Sports on FS1 that Brady is business partner and a close personal family friend, and he thinks Silva is the closest UFC has to Brady in terms of accomplishments and how he represented the sport. “If you look at what Anderson Silva’s accomplished and how long he’s been in the game and how he’s carried himself … I’d go with Anderson,” he said.
NOW CHECK OUT YESTERDAY’S UPDATE: FRIDAY NEWS DIGEST 2/3: Jose Aldo explains why McGregor has little chance to beat Mayweather in boxing (w/Cervantes Analysis)
(Jonathan Cervantes has been an avid fan of MMA since 2009 when he saw GSP vs. B.J. Penn 2. He has practiced tae kwon do, jiu-jitsu, and wrestling in the past and is currently a student majoring in entrepreneurship at the University of San Francisco. He writes the MMATorch News Digest on Fridays and Saturdays. Michael Hiscoe writes MMATorch News Digests Sunday through Thursday each week.)
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