Holly Holm will box for the first time in over a decade next month in Anaheim
12 years after last setting foot in a boxing ring, former two-sport champion Holly Holm is set to make her comeback on DAZN’s June 28th Jake Paul vs Julio Cesar Chavez Jr pay-per-view.
Holm (33-2-3, 9 KO), 43, began splitting her time between boxing and MMA in 2011 before switching full-time in 2013. A 7-0 run carried her to the UFC, where she picked up a pair of uninspiring victories over Raquel Pennington and Marion Reneau to earn a crack at Ronda Rousey.
“The Preacher’s Daughter” defied near ten-to-one odds to boot the heretofore unstoppable Rousey upside the head and claim the promotion’s bantamweight title, only to lose it in her inaugural defense to a comeback submission from Miesha Tate. She never did reclaim that luster, losing two title bids to Cris “Cyborg” Justino and Amanda Nunes in a 5-6 (1 NC) run that saw her leave the promotion after a rout at the hands of Kayla Harrison.
She has an infinitely superior pedigree to comeback opponent Yolanda Guadalupe Vega Ochoa (10-0, 1 KO), who’s spent her stop-and-start career beating unremarkable opposition in her native Mexico, but there’s not a whole lot else going for her. Holm, 14 years her elder, has long relied heavily on her legs legs, and not just in the sense of smashing them into peoples’ temples at high speeds; her footwork and elusiveness were the keys to her success. Lately, however, she’s relied on smothering opponents in the clinch.
And we know that’s by necessity because she tried the same thing on Harrison, America’s most decorated female judoka. She simply cannot move the way she used to and her flurries of arm punches aren’t a threat on their own.
This is going to be ugly. Odds are we’re in for a very sloppy grappling match.
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