Holly Holm’s first year competing inside the UFC Octagon was not only the greatest rookie campaign in the promotion’s history. It was an all-time best stretch for any fighter, with any level of experience over the course of a single calendar year.
We fawn over fighters earning four or five victories in a 12-month stretch because it means the select handful of competitors that have done it have managed to stay both healthy, and winning that many consecutive fights over three years is difficult, yet alone doing it in the span of a year.
But most of the time, that milestone is achieved with a couple “lay-ups” mixed in — a meeting with a promotional newcomer or a short-notice replacement filling in for an injured foe. Again, winning is difficult no matter who is standing across the cage from you, but quality competitors beating mostly over-matched adversaries four or five times isn’t the same as taking out ranked opposition and then completely dominating one of the biggest sports stars on the planet in your tenth professional mixed martial arts fight.
A champion in three different weight classes during her boxing days, Holm retired from the ring following her May 2013 win over Mary McGee, shifting her focus to pursuing her MMA career full time.
She roared through the regional circuit, collecting four wins in 10 months, culminating with a fifth-round knockout win over Juliana Werner to claim the Legacy FC (now Legacy Fighting Alliance or LFA) bantamweight title. Three months later, she signed with the UFC, debuting in February 2015 at UFC 184 with a split decision win over Ultimate Fighter alum and battle-tested veteran Raquel Pennington.
Less than five months later, Holm was back in the Octagon, posting a unanimous decision victory over Marion Reneau to push her record to 9-0 and set up a showdown with reigning champion and undefeated superstar Ronda Rousey.
More than six years later, it’s still difficult to put into words how jarring it was to see Holm dismantle Rousey with such ease and grace.
Though the champion seemed unnecessarily feisty and combative in the days leading up to the UFC 193 main event, most people assumed she’d be the same cold-blooded finisher as always once the two stepped into the cage, but that wasn’t the case. Rousey was overly aggressive, and Holm used it to her advantage from the opening second, landing crisp counters and dancing out of the way of the forward-charging champion.
At one point, the challenger literally looked like a matador, pulling the red cape out from in front of the bull charging toward her at the last second, causing Rousey to stumble awkwardly into the fence.
Holm dominated the opening round, and less than a minute into the second stanza, having already rattled the reigning champion, she completed the masterful and shocking upset with a swift kick to the head.
Rousey fell, Holm celebrated in shocked excitement, and fans and pundits everyone instantly tried to come to grips with what they just witnessed.
The queen is dead; long live the queen … except that’s not what happened, which is why Holm stands as the most interesting woman in the UFC today.
When Rousey retreated to seclusion rather than look for an instant rematch, Holm was paired with the next challenger in line, former Strikeforce titleholder and Rousey’s original rival Miesha Tate at UFC 196. Ahead on the scorecards heading into the final round and two minutes from victory, Holm got dragged to the canvas by Tate, who instant climbed onto her back and attacked a rear-naked choke as Holm rose to her feet.
The champion tried to dump the challenger off over the top, but Tate stayed affixed to Holm like a Jansport, sinking the choke in further as they tumbled to the canvas. Seconds later, Holm was unconscious, and a new champion was crying tears of joy inside the Octagon.
Holm lost again four months later in a main event matchup with Valentina Shevchenko, and then dropped a third consecutive outing in February 2017 to Germaine de Randamie in the inaugural UFC women’s featherweight title fight. Fifteen months after shocking the world and shattering Rousey’s invincible aura, Holm was on a three-fight slide, leaving many to wonder if she just happened to catch lightning in a bottle on that fateful November evening in Melbourne, Australia?
A third-round knockout win over Bethe Correia didn’t change the narrative, and subsequent championship fight setbacks against Cris Cyborg and Amanda Nunes left Holm with a 2-5 record in her first seven fights following her historic win over Rousey. Granted, four of those losses came in championship fights and the other came against the current flyweight champion who has proven to be a dominant force herself, but it was still difficult to process that someone that executed a flawless game plan and looked so untouchable against a marauding champion like Rousey would then turn around and lose five of her next seven appearances.
Holm put together her first winning streak since beginning her career with 10 consecutive victories in 2020, registering unanimous decision wins in a rematch with Pennington and a main event showdown with Irene Aldana before a kidney ailment and knee injury forced her from a pair of assignments last year.
Saturday evening, she steps into the Octagon to face Brazilian contender Kelten Vieira in a bout that feels destined to tell fans and observers exactly where Holm stands in the division at present, and might help further clarify her complicated legacy inside the UFC cage.
Vieira is a talented fighter — she’s 12-2 and coming off a strong showing in November, where she distanced herself from Tate the further into the fight they went, earning scores of 48-47 twice and 49-46 once to collect a unanimous decision win over the former champion.
She’s been tabbed as a potential title threat for a number of years now, and could earn the opportunity to fight for gold later this year if she’s able to get by Holm, but despite her uneven 4-5 record since winning the title, the 40-year-old New Mexico native remains a formidable threat.
If we were to make a list of the Top 25 female fighters of all time, each of the women that bested Holm would have to be included, as would both Rousey and Holm, naturally, and yet she feels like someone viewed more as a transitional champion, to borrow a phrase from the world of professional wrestling, or the Houston Rockets teams that won back-to-back NBA titles in Michael Jordan’s absence than one of the absolute best to ever compete in the sport.
Holm is a shining example of why who you fought can often be more important than your actual record when talking about MMA fighters, their skills, and their standing, both in the moment and amongst the pantheon of all-time greats. She’s lost to five world champions and beaten everyone else rather handily, including the woman who first broke the glass ceiling in the UFC, reigned over the bantamweight division for three years, and remains a global superstar to this day.
All the while, she’s continued working to add new elements to her repertoire, constantly trying to work her way back to another championship opportunity; unwilling to even fathom that her time as a top contender may have passed because her most recent efforts give her no reason to think that way.
Holm could very well go out on Saturday night and completely out-work Vieira, utilizing the same stick-and-move strategy with clean boxing, an assortment of kicks, and surprisingly strong work in the clinch that she used to turn back Pennington and Aldana in her two most recent appearances. No one would be surprised if that’s what comes to pass, because it feels like that is what is going to happen.
And if that does come to pass, it will leave Holm right where she’s been for the last six years and change: a former champion, stationed in the Top 3 in the bantamweight division, capable of beating anyone looking to use her as a stepping stone, but just a half-step behind some of the other all-time greats still plying their trade inside the UFC Octagon.
Holm’s career has been fascinating to watch thus far, and there is no reason to expect that to change any time soon.
