Moments after Holly Holm dethroned Ronda Rousey with a vicious head kick knockout at UFC 193, she offered the former champ an immediate title shot. Holly Holm is humble in victory and defeat, her own version of Triple H, perhaps.
Now she’s moving up to challenge Cris Cyborg for the UFC women’s featherweight belt on December 30th at UFC 219, and she’s offering Cyborg an immediate rematch once she beats her. It’s a really nice way of trash talking.
Not only does the polite and soft-spoken Holm basically say that she’s going to beat Cyborg twice, but she executes a sly (but gentle) little diss in the direction of Ronda Rousey, who went on sabbatical after losing her belt.
Transcribed from the UFC 219 conference call:
“With Ronda, I was open to the rematch as well. It’s just, they didn’t know how long or when she would come back, or when she would want to, and that’s when I said, ‘Well, I don’t want to just wait around. I’ll wait if you can tell me that it’s going to be within six months or whatever,’ but I didn’t want to just be waiting around for that one fight. I wanted to be able to fight and train and live out my passion. I didn’t want it to just be based on just one fighter.
So, I think that situation was different. If that was to happen in this fight, of course I would say yes. I think anybody deserves a rematch. I think that’s just the name of the game. That’s the fighting spirit, and I would definitely be open to that. I feel like Cris is definitely a competitive person as well and trains hard, and I feel like the situation after the fight would be a little bit different anyway. I don’t think that Cris would want to sit aside for a year or however long.”
This is a realistic way of looking at things. Holm is 36 years old, and even though she’s shown no signs of slowing down, she needs to stay active if she hopes to cement her legacy as one of the best women fighters ever. A win or two against Cyborg would set that in stone.
(Via BloodyElbow)
