Ronda Rousey was certainly feeling herself following her farce of a win over Gina Carano in just 17 seconds. So much so that the former UFC women’s bantamweight champion made a wild claim about who would win a rematch between herself and Holly Holm.
As all fight fans will recall, Holly Holm captured the bantamweight title and gave Ronda Rousey her first loss in MMA at UFC 193 in 2015 when she knocked the then-champion out with a high kick in the second round. In defeating Rousey, Holm became the first person to win championships in both boxing and MMA, as she has won several welterweight boxing titles.
After the Gina Carano fight, Holm said she would be open to a rematch with Ronda Rousey, but said she doubted Rousey would want one.
“I always have said since the minute the last fight was over, I’ll always rematch her,” Holm told MMA Fighting. “That’s always been available. But she wanted to come back and have this win and go back and enjoy and have a win like that. No hate from me. I hope she does well. I hope she does whatever she wants with her life. That’s her life. I’d always be open to fight her again.”
Ronda Rousey wasted little time replying to what Holm had to say, telling Kay Adams, “I said I’m retired, A, and B, I think that I am a completely different fighter now, and I would clean her clock. […] I think I definitely have the ability and the opportunity to be able to f—— clean her clock and rewrite all of that, but it’s no longer important to me anymore. “
Holly Holm responds to Ronda Rousey’s claims
Wednesday on The Ariel Helwani Show, Holly Holm responded to Ronda Rousey’s statements about fighting her.
“Yeah, she said she’d clean my clock or something like that, or whatever,” Holm said. “The thing is I say, the whole reason why it was a huge upset is because she was such a dominant champion. And you won’t ever see me totally smearing her name or anything like that, and you won’t.
“But banter like that is, I mean, what I thought honestly? I was like, yeah, I mean that’s what she says, but I was like, before our last fight she also said she thinks she’s gonna move around, hop around and then kick me in the face and knock me out, but it ain’t going to go down like that. That’s not how it went down. That’s what I was thinking in my head. Just like, ‘Well, you can say one thing and actions are another.’ She’s always going to be more of that type of person. The thing is I’ve always said I’ll rematch her. That’s the bottom line. She doesn’t want it, she’s never wanted it, and that’s alright. That’s alright. Say you don’t want it.”
Why hasn’t Ronda Rousey ever wanted a rematch?
Helwani then pointed out to Holm that while saying she doesn’t want the fight, Rousey also said she would clean Holm’s clock.
“Do you think she doesn’t want to give you that opportunity?” Helwani asked. “Do you think she holds any animosity towards you and doesn’t want to gift you the fight?”
“Sure, and she does have a big name, and that would be the big fight. You would need me to have a fight like that,” Holm replied. “That’s probably what she’s thinking in her, you know, like in her pride, and that would be the biggest fight. You do need both of us for that. So there’s no lie in that.
“But I don’t think she really wants to, and I’m not even mad at her for it. I don’t want someone to get in there and fight if they don’t want to actually fight. Because I want someone who wants it.
“I feel like it’s just one of the things a lot of people ask about. I think a lot of people think that like this didn’t happen, you know, back in the day, because I don’t even know why, but it’s never been because I said no. I 100 percent always said, ‘If she wants the rematch, I’ll give it to her.’ And I have respect for her. She was a dominant champion. She just came back and did her thing; she’s good at what she does. She’s still a threat with that.”