Holly Holm open to rematch with UFC 219 win, because Cris Cyborg won’t ‘want to sit aside for a year’

When Holly Holm shocked the world at UFC 193 with her stunning upset of Ronda Rousey, many within the fight game assumed an immediate rematch would be next. After all, Rousey was one of the sport’s biggest stars and had laid waste to the rest of the bantamweight division in historic fashion, so if anyone deserved an opportunity to run things back, it was her.

But alas, the rematch never happened.

After her loss to Holm, Rousey effectively became a ghost in MMA. Thirteen months passed before she again entered the UFC Octagon, losing in 48 seconds to Amanda Nunes in Dec. 2016, after which she vanished from whence she came. Holm, on the other hand, made a quick turnaround, unsuccessfully defending her title against Miesha Tate less than four months after her Herculean victory over Rousey. The setback against Tate ensured that the Rousey rematch was gone, but Holm fought to remain a top contender in the UFC’s 135-pound class.

Now, Holm has a chance to once more upset a titan of women’s MMA.

Holm takes on UFC women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg on Dec. 30 in the main event of UFC 219. It’s a familiar spot, Holm positioned as a sizable underdog to one of the sport’s foremost legends. But this time around, if Holm upsets Cyborg and shocks the world for a second time in her MMA career, she is more than willing to run things back against the Brazilian.

“With Ronda, I was open to the rematch as well,” Holm explained on a recent UFC 219 conference call. “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.”

Holm certainly has her work cut out for her.

While Rousey was a world-class judoka who fell in love with her middling striking, Cyborg is adept in virtually every facet of the game. The 32-year-old former Strikeforce and Invicta FC champion is unbeaten over her last 19 fights and is widely recognized as the greatest female featherweight to ever compete.

And Holm was honest when asked to describe the force she’s up against at UFC 219.

“She’s strong, she’s aggressive, she’s a bigger fighter than me,” Holm said bluntly. “She spent most of her career at 145. I’ve only had one fight at 145. My fights have been at the 135-pound weight (class). She’s also, she trains hard. I know she does. I put nothing past what she can do, she’s got a lot of wins under her belt for a reason. She trains hard, she goes in there, she believes in herself and she imposes her will on people. I’m a different fighter though, and I know that this will be a different fight come the 30th.”

Holm is generally at her best as a counter-striker, so in that regard, the stylistic clash between she and Cyborg is an intriguing one.

For much of her career, Cyborg was a bulldozer, content to overwhelm her opponents with an unrelenting barrage of pressure and heavy strikes. Her style has evolved over the years, though, and the Cyborg who captured the UFC featherweight title with a third-round destruction of Tonya Evinger at UFC 214 was a more measured fighter, one patient and willing to sit back and pick her spots.

Holm vows to be ready for whichever version of Cyborg shows up in Las Vegas.

“She’s always been really aggressive in her fights and she’s a strong opponent, and it can be a very intimidating type of fight,” Holm said. “And she might come aggressive and she might not. We’re going to be ready for either one. A lot of people, when they’re training for a fight, they have their own gameplan. She’s got her thing she’s been working on and I’ve got mine that I’ve been working on, and I’m ready to just kinda perform what we’ve been working on. It’s not like we trained a full camp of, ‘Oh okay, she’s aggressive so she’s going to come forward and let’s just do this.’

“She might want to stop and counter. She might want to move more. She might want to work on her clinch. She might want to do wrestling. There’s a lot going on in an MMA fight and we’ve been training to be ready for any of those situations.”

While the odds may not reflect it, a victory over Cyborg would be an even bigger upset in the eyes of many than Holm’s masterclass over Rousey. It would also push Holm’s legacy into a different stratosphere, making her the only combat sports athlete in history to capture titles in multiple divisions in both boxing and MMA.

That’s impressive feat considering the three-fight losing streak Holm was forced to overcome with her July knockout of Bethe Correia. And Holm isn’t ready to let the opportunity to do something legendary slip through her fingers.

“I’ve had some highs and some lows over the last two years,” Holm said. “From a big high to having a couple losses, and then having a win. This is one of those things that, this is a huge challenge for me to take. A lot of girls don’t even want to step up in weight to fight at 145, and I wanted to take on the opportunity. I want to show people I’m taking this opportunity for a reason. I don’t want to just say I tried. I want to go in there and do the best I can. I want to go in there and have a victory. So, I put a lot on myself for this fight. I’ve trained very hard and I know that this is a huge opportunity for me, and I just don’t want to let it pass me by and not make the most of it.”