Holly Holm sends message to critics

Former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Holly Holm has been on a bit of a skid lately.

After picking up a spectacular KO win over Ronda Rousey in the main event of UFC 193 back in November of 2015 to claim the women’s bantamweight championship in an incredibly dominant performance, Holm returned to the Octagon at UFC 196 in March. This time, she was doing so as the champion, and stepping into the cage to fight a very hungry Miesha Tate. While Holm appeared to be en-route to what many believed would be a unanimous decision win, Tate picked up a late 5th round submission win to claim the UFC women’s bantamweight championship.

Holm then returned to the Octagon once again in July in the main event of ‘UFC Fight Night: Chicago’ to square off with Valentina Shevchenko in a pivotal showdown. The fight was an extremely competitive one, however Shevchenko’s spectacular Muay Thai was the x-factor as she picked apart the former champ, ultimately picking up a unanimous decision win over Holm.

Following the fight, Holm underwent surgery on her thumb, and was sidelined from training for some time. After being cleared by doctors, the former champ is now ready to return to the Octagon, and has a message for those that criticized her for remaining active while Ronda Rousey was absent, rather than wait for a rematch with Rousey.

She spoke on The MMA Hour:

“It is annoying because a lot of people that do that, I don’t think they ever listen to all these others kind of interviews or articles or anything that come out for me. I like to fight,” she said. “I don’t know why people think that I’m taking fights for money. It drives me crazy. I wanted to fight because I wanted to get in there and fight, it had nothing to do if I should have waited for this money fight or that money fight. It’s not why I fight.

“And, so whatever people say I guess is their own opinion that has nothing to do with what I shoot for or what my goals are. I always tell myself I’m never going to fight for money, only for passion. And I want to stay true to that. And that’s what I was doing, is fighting because I wanted to fight. That’s it.”

In regards to her next fight, nothing is set in stone yet for Holm, however she stated that her & the UFC will hopefully “schedule something in the next few weeks.”

In addition, Holm just wants to fight:

“No, I just want to fight, and I want to win,” she said. “That’s my goal. That’s really as simple as I want to think. What fight it is, it really doesn’t matter to me. I want to win just as badly whether it’s on a big card or not. I want to win even if it’s not on TV. Even in practice, I still want to punch my teammates more than they hit me. That’s the name of the game. I am just focused on a victory, and that’s it.”