A conference room chair was placed up a small stage at the MGM Grand last Saturday, set up for Holly Holm, the newly minted UFC champion and conqueror of Ronda Rousey. It was a way to handle a small army of reporters looking for interviews.
Holm sat in it for an hour, answered every question and when the session was over stood up, looked at the chair and decided that it should be put away somewhere. So she picked it up and asked a hotel worker where she should put it. It was her natural, helpful instinct.
The MGM Grand and the UFC are not small operations. Both have plenty of employees who are tasked with things like breaking down a room after a function. This isn’t the job of Holly Holm, which is why a burly guy stepped up and tried to take the chair from Holm.
She didn’t let go though, saying she’d carry it over to the side of the room herself. Why wouldn’t she? Soon enough they both had a hand on it and were bearing the load together.
Champs don’t carry the chairs, Holm was reminded and with that she shrugged and kind of laughed.
“I’m not changing,” Holm said, finding herself caught in the wonderful place between regular person and superstardom, unwilling to let go of the past (or the chair) even as she walks right into her new reality.
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Holm entered her November fight with Rousey as a huge underdog and a fairly anonymous presence in combat sports. At age 34, she’d been boxing champion turned MMA fighter, but had yet to show the kind of promise that suggested she could hang with Rousey, the game’s biggest star with a knack of finishing fights quickly.
Holm was undeterred. She’d returned from an injury and fought twice already in 2015. Across the year she’d enjoyed the best sustained training of her life under legendary trainers Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn. She knew she was improved, vastly improved actually. The motivation of taking such a monster fight against such a dangerous opponent had focused everything.
“I’m a completely different fighter than I was 12 months ago,” Holm said. “I feel like a lot of people were underestimating me and I think the other part of it was I knew I was up against it and I really, really wanted to get better. I knew I had to, to win that fight.”
“When I got knocked out [in a 2011 boxing match], someone came up to me and said, ‘Don’t get too down, it’s not the end of the world.’ Actually that’s exactly what it feels like, the end of the world. You put your heart and soul into it. Everything mental, physical, emotional.
“I’m a completely different fighter than I was 12 months ago,” Holm said. “I feel like a lot of people were underestimating me and I think the other part of it was I knew I was up against it and I really, really wanted to get better. I knew I had to, to win that fight.”
Early in the fight she began tagging Rousey with straight lefts and oblique kicks, picking her openings and sapping the champ of confidence. Hers, in turn, soared.
“As soon as I started landing a few straight lefts, I thought, ‘You know what, I’m on it,’” Holm said. “I felt like I had her timing.”
Rousey’s face began to redden and she grew desperate. Holm kept landing more shots. She then escaped a clinch on the cage and an arm bar attempt on the ground. By the end of Round 1 it was clear who was the better fighter.
“I was dominating,” Holm said. “Anything can happen though. We’ve all watched Ronda’s fights, she has the fastest finishes. So there wasn’t a moment when I thought, ‘Oh, I can cruise.’”
In Round 2 she drilled Rousey with a kick to the head and three punches later was deemed the champion.
In a flash, everything changed.
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Immediately Holm was thrust into the spotlight, her story told to the world. The preacher’s daughter with the devoted husband. The combat lifer with a touch of sweetness to her. The underdog who never doubted.
Much of the spotlight remained on Rousey though. The story of the spectacular fall of the queen of the sport was too big to ignore. Critics celebrated. Some media who know little about the unpredictability of MMA deemed her a fraud. She was hurt bad. She tried to hide her face from TMZ when she flew home. She holed up in her home in Venice, Calif. People wondered if she was done.
Rousey eventually gave an interview to ESPN the Magazine where she sounded depressed, despondent and just simply down about how her cloak of invincibility was gone.
“I'm just really [expletive] sad," Rousey said.
Holm read the quotes and she couldn’t help but feel some sympathy.
“It is a very sad place to be,” Holm said. “I’ve been there.
“You know what,” Holm continued, “I wouldn’t change anything about the fight. That’s what I go in there to do. I hate to lose. And I want the knockout. Who doesn’t want the knock out? That’s the ultimate victory.
“But when the fight is over and the decision is done there is always this little bit of compassion because when you’re a fighter you know what it's like to lose,” she said. “There is a little bit of compassion.
“When I got knocked out [in a 2011 boxing match], someone came up to me and said, ‘Don’t get too down, it’s not the end of the world.’ Actually that’s exactly what it feels like, the end of the world. You put your heart and soul into it. Everything mental, physical, emotional.
“And being in the spotlight as she has, people have you from here [holding her hand up high] going to here [holding her hand down low]. So there is some compassion, not that I would change the decision. If I have the chance to do it all over again, that’s my plan. To finish the fight with a knockout.”
Holm and Rousey are almost certainly going to fight again, perhaps at UFC 200 in July. Holm said a rematch presents a new challenge.
“It’s going to be a different fight,” Holm said. “Not only can they watch the film, they’ve felt my strength, they’ve felt my punches, they felt my movement so she’ll be able to be more prepared the second time around.”
Rousey needs to heal up and star in a movie first. Her face is still injured and her teeth a bit loose. Then she needs to go through camp. She needs to regain some confidence. Holm is perfectly healthy and doesn’t have much to do in the meantime. It’s already getting to her.
“I don’t want to wait eight months,” Holm said. “I’m ready to fight tomorrow. I’m ready to go.”
This is part of her new reality too. Someone who has fought in 38 professional boxing matches, three in kickboxing and 10 in MMA wants some action. There’s a business to it though also, and Holm-Rousey II is far more valuable if no one has lost in between. For the first time in her career, she’ll make more money by not fighting.
Like not putting the chair away, she’s learning to understand that also.
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Her hometown of Albuquerque threw a parade for her and 20,000 people showed up. She’s done talk shows and appearances around the country. She may appear at a Denver Broncos game next month.
She won the title at UFC 193, which made last weekend’s UFC 194 her coming-out party to the sport's fans. They jammed a Q&A session on Saturday morning. She was cheered when it was announced she was Octagon side on Saturday night. Her kick to Rousey’s head appeared on the pre-card hype video, a coveted spot in the UFC. The casino included huge banners featuring her likeness and the championship belt.
She wasn’t fighting, but she is undoubtedly one of the promotion’s stars now.
How far can she walk now without getting stopped for a picture or autograph?
“Not very far,” she said with a laugh.
Two months ago she could have strolled right though. She said most fans are just happy for her, happy that she got to taste the success, an overnight sensation after all those years of quiet, solitary work in the making. They seem to want to share in the good fortune.
“It’s a lot,” she said. “And it’s great. It’s not necessarily surprising. I’ve seen all the other champions and what they need to deal with. I can’t say it is something I was shocked by but I do like my own space sometimes.”
Ideally she said she’d spend the day training and the night going to dinner with her husband. That isn’t happening anymore. They’ll come right up to the table now.
She shrugged again. She laughed. One fight and everything changed. One fight and at age 34, a whole new life.
It was almost time to put her chair away.
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