Holly Holm shocked the world in 2015 when her foot ricocheted off Ronda Rousey’s jaw and sent the UFC bantamweight champion crashing to the canvas.
At the time, Holm’s knockout to win the title was considered one of the greatest upsets in UFC history. Nearly nine years have passed since that night, and Holm has remained a stalwart in the bantamweight rankings. Rousey, on the other hand, survived for one more fight before calling it a career.
Just recently, Rousey released her autobiography, Our Fight, and in the book she details a history of concussions that she claimed effectively forced her to stop fighting. In particular, she said a fall down some stairs before UFC 193 led to her facing Holm while dealing with the aftereffects of a concussion.
In response. Holm praised Rousey as an incredible champion, but she scoffed at the ex-champ’s explanation that diminished her win.
“So everything I say, which I’m sure people will just take parts of what I’m about to say and make it sound how you guys want, but I say this all out of respect,” Holm said during UFC 300 media day.
“In order to have a big upset like that fight was, you have to have a dominant champion. Without her being so dominant, then I couldn’t have been able to have such an upset. With that being said, I was the better fighter. I was the better fighter that night.”
When it comes to Rousey’s self-reported history of concussions, Holm believes that’s a common occurrence for anybody competing in combat sports for any significant amount of time. She knows she’s suffered through her own issues with concussions in the past, but she refuses to use them as a scapegoat for past defeats.
“If you’ve made a career of fighting, you’ve had a concussion at some point,” Holm said. “You go back and look at some of my boxing fights and some of the things I’ve done, I’ve definitely had some concussions. I’ll never sit here and use that as an excuse for any loss.”
As part of the promotional tour discussing her new book, Rousey admitted it stung to lose the way she did to Holm that night, especially knowing she wasn’t at her best.
Rousey added that if she was competing at 100 percent, there’s no one in the UFC who could have beaten her, and she said it bothers her “that I’m not recognized as the greatest ever, when I know I am.”
That attitude explains why Holm wasn’t totally stunned by Rousey’s comments. Even after all this time, Rousey still struggles to accept defeat.
“I think that it’s probably just hard for her to maybe admit that — I was just the better fighter,” Holm said. “Was she so dominant and a good champion? 100 percent, I give her that. But she wasn’t better than me, and especially that night.”